Between 1955, when he signed with Columbia, and 1966, a year before Dave Brubeck wound up his famous quartet, Brubeck made a total of 19 studio albums which cover a remarkable amount of musical territory – from impressions and portraits to the standards repertoire, from excursions into various time signatures to a collaboration with Leonard Bernstein, from orchestral writing to this voyage of discovery into the bossa nova (and other Brazilian rhythms). In 1962, Stan Getz had topped the singles chart with ‘Desifinado’ and the album chart with Jazz Samba, and the Brazilian bossa nova was the rythme du jour. While not the huge success of Getz's recordings, Brubeck's bossa is done with equal deference and respect to the idiom, to the extent Brubeck's polytonal, polyrhythmical and percussive aspects of his style simply do not surface here, allowing him to concentrate on his gift for shaping and developing melody (his prowess as a successful songwriter and composer is often overlooked). Neither Brubeck nor alto saxophonist Paul Desmond are at a loss for words here, marking this album a little gem in Brubeck's oeuvre for its calmness and subtlety. There are seven bonus tracks, all recorded at the album sessions – but not included on the original album – that continue in similar thoughtful mood. These have no bossa connections, however, and all but one are standards, often with long rhapsodic versions of the song's verse by unaccompanied piano. Interestingly, the one Brubeck original among the bonus tracks, ‘Fatha’, in obvious dedication to Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines with stride piano variations, never resurfaced again after this sparkling duo performance with bassist Eugene Wright.