Vibraphonist Dave Samuels and saxophonist/clarinetist Paquito D’Rivera wrote the tune “One For Tom” in honor of Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos “Tom” Jobim. It was first recorded by their group the Caribbean Jazz Project on the 1995 album of the same name.

In 2009 Samuels was guest on Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz where he performed the tune as a duo with pianist Alain Mallet. After the performance, Samuels and McPartland discuss Jobim’s music and Samuels hits on something that has always intrigued me about Jobim’s music:

It’s funny, you listen to these beautiful melodies and at first glance it seems like, ‘oh, this is really a beautiful tune with a great feel and boy, these changes are really—these are going to be easy changes to play over.’ And then as you start playing it you realize in order to thread the needle to get through the changes is so specific and so delicate that it’s deceptively difficult. Because when you first play the tune it sounds—oh, nothing to it. And then you start playing over it and it really—it’s almost like he’s created the perfect melody for these changes and everything else other than that melody doesn’t really sound that great. That’s my take on his writing”

There is a bit of hyperbole in the idea that anything apart from the melody will not sound good. Certainly many artists have explored Jobim’s music in artistic and tasteful ways. But I think the “threading the needle” imagery is apt. I have found it takes care and attention to detail to play Jobim’s tunes in the first place, and to improvise over the changes even more so. When it works, it’s a delight.

With “One For Tom” Samuels/D’Rivera captured that same essence of Jobim’s writing. As Marian McPartland remarks after hearing it performed, “Wherever Tom is he would love that tune.”