When I was a baby, my parents would tuck me in their bed while they had friends over for a night of poker, music, and a few drinks. I usually fell asleep watching TV, but later woke to laughter and music. One night I awoke to some kind of rhythm which I later would learn was called bossanova, and I was hooked. It was magic and has been ever since.
It was 1967 and with Vietnam looming in my future, I decided to take a little vacation down to Acapulco, and see what the girls were like south of the border.
On my first day out, I grabbed a towel and went to the beach. After setting up my gear, I noticed two gorgeous girls wearing polka dot bikinis accompanied by an elegant looking guy sunning himself. Naturally I struck up a conversation and found out their names were Calamari and Carita, and they were traveling companions with this guy, Sergio. He was friendly and before long, he invited me to a cocktail party he was hosting at his house that evening. Of course I accepted.
Arriving fashionably late, I realized Sergio was no ordinary guy and this was no ordinary pad. It was on the side of a hill with a veranda overlooking the Acapulco bay, and the villa itself was decorated like something out of a James Bond movie with sleek modern furniture and the loud colors like you’d see in some hipster magazine. After being greeted by Sergio and his other guests, I waded through a bevy of beauties wearing mini skirts and bouffant hairdos only to hear some swinging music coming from the corner of the room. What I saw is still with me forty years later like some magic sixties pill.
Playing guitar like Antonio Carlos Jobim with an attitude was a tall good looking guy wearing white bellbottoms and long black hair who introduced himself as Estevio. Next to him, singing and swaying like a young Elis Regina was Estevio’s beautiful daughter, Calimari. On the other side was a gorgeous, guiro girl from Ipanema who called herself Carita. In the midst of this, wailing on sax like a man possessed with blood, sweat, tears, and better than Getz was Rogilio. When the bass player went on an extended break, I asked if I could sit in and Estevio said “Si”. What followed for me was nirvana. We lounged, samba’d, bossanova’d, grooved, and psychadelic’d through all kinds of songs. At dawn, Sergio finally shut down the party and surprised us all by handing us a reel to reel tape of the night’s music as we left. Here it is for you to share and enjoy some forty years later.
