Over the years, and most recently 18 months ago, I’ve chronicled the adventures of the indie group Pomplamoose. Its members are the singer / guitarist Nataly Dawn, and the all-purpose-musician Jack Conte. If you go here, you’ll see that early-2014 report, plus links to the previous ones, including from the surprisingly vociferous tribe of Pomplamoose-haters who keep writing in.

You’ll also see three embedded videos of songs even the haters would have a hard time hating: the Pomplamoose versions of Happy, September, and Mister Sandman.

Now Nataly Dawn is back, with the drummer and singer Carlos Cabrera (who has toured with Pomplamoose), with their own version of Waters of March. The singing, like that title, is in English, and it has a completely different vibe from the Jobim/Regina classic. But worth checking out!

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To round out this theme, I’ll include a link to a 2012 dispatch that attempted to link the cool of Jobim’s music to that year’s presidential race.

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Further on McCorkle, from a friend who is a genuine music expert (as opposed to an amateur “know what I like” fan like me):

Thanks for that irresistible video of Regina and Jobim singing “Waters of March.” I’d never seen it before, and you may be right in your top rankings.

But I’d say there are much livelier English-language versions than the one you show: e.g., Susannah McCorkle, Stacey Kent (though, I can’t remember now, hers might be in French), or Oleta Adams & Al Jarreau.

3) The friends and readers ask, I provide! Here is a YouTube version of Oleta Adams and Al Jarreau:

And as a bonus, here is Stacey Kent with Les Eaux de Mars, which as my reader half-suspected is en français (she is American). Even though I can understand the words here, unlike those in the original Portuguese, for me they still have that alluring cat-purr sound I noted about the original, and which I find an improvement over English-lyric versions even as elegant as McCorkle’s.

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From another reader, a hypothesis I won’t take time to track down. It concerns the bewitching video of Jobim and the singer Elis Regina performing Aguas:

One fascinating story I've heard (I think it's in Sergio Cabral's biography of Jobim but I'm finding it frustratingly hard to find a link) is that Elis & Tom apparently could barely stand each other in these sessions.

In this version of the story, she'd agreed to do the album for contractual reasons, and he disagreed with the arrangements, and the producer's biggest task was keeping either one of them from walking out.

It's a striking story because it's such a contrast to the audible and, in the case of that video, visible intimacy of the recordings. And I've seen other accounts saying they all stayed at the same LA hotel, shared riotous group dinners and generally had a ball.

I'm genuinely confused and fascinated by which account is true but I almost prefer the bitter to the sweet version. If it's true it's an amazing -- almost scary -- example of what consummate professionals these two musicians were, to spin such tension into such a convincing simulacrum of affection.

David Byrne and Marisa Monte. A fan of the music writes:

I'm happy to see you writing about this amazing song, which I also happen to have been listening to all week. However, your omission of the version that introduced me to the tune, which remains my favorite rendition, makes me worried that you've never heard it! [JF note: you’re right. I had not.]

It's by (former Talking Head) David Byrne and Marisa Monte. Their version is bilingual, and includes some brilliant soaring singing from Byrne and instrumentation that only hints at the song's South American roots.

Yes, this is really something. When you hear it, the song itself couldn’t be by anyone but Jobim, but the (English half of) the singing couldn’t be by anyone by Byrne.

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Luciana Souza. A straightfoward but nice English-language version, with some variations in the English translation:

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Colas de Março. I was living in Japan when the video below came out, so I had not seen it until today. Wow. This is the “agony” part of this item’s headline. The tech writer and editor Harry McCracken sets up what you are about to see, if you dare:

I’ve been enjoying the series about what really is my favorite song. I first encountered it thirty years ago--long before I knew who Tom Jobim was--in [the video below}.

Coke took a piece which would later be voted the greatest Brazilian song of all time and did everything in its power to hyper-Americanize it, with all-new lyrics which are barked more than sung, plus visuals of baseball, basketball, football, Marines raising a flag, the Statue of Liberty, and pseudo-Flashdance dance moves. And, of course, Coke!

It was silly at the time, and in retrospect, the 1980s vibe is overwhelming. I'm still not sure whether Coke thought that people would recognize the tune, or whether it was attempting to co-opt an unfamiliar piece by the composer of The Girl From Ipanema. But I find it fascinating that the song is able to withstand this interpretation and retain some of its appeal.

Wow. Or maybe: USA! USA!

Still to come: Yo-yo Ma, Cassandra Wilson, John Pizzarelli, and more. Thanks to all.

The more of these I've listened to, the more strongly I lean toward those not in English. But of English versions, this is a good one.

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You want language diversity? Why not a Slovenian rendering. Here is one by Zvezdana Novakovič and a male singer I am guessing is Primož Vitez.

Emerging common theme: the original Portuguese, the French (via Stacey Kent), and now the Slovenian versions of the song share a very un-English and very alluring abundance of purring-heavy fricative tones.

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You want more language diversity? How about a Portuguese-language version, sung by an originally Japanese group working out of New York. I give you Cibo Matto, and … hear for yourself.

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Back to English. Here is American singer Paula West.

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A part English, part Portuguese version, by Anya Marina, also from the U.S.

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John Pizzarelli. I’m a long-time fan of his. In a separate “best version of Route 66” contest I would make a case for the one by Pizzarelli. Here he is with Jobim.

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Art Garfunkel! A slide show goes with this, which I originally thought was hokey but which grew on me.

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Charlie Sheen!!! I’ll just let you figure this out.

I am betting that the female role here is being lip-synched by Katheryn Winnick from a genuine Portuguese speaker, whereas Charlie seems to be going on his own. Winning!

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I can go no further. Stay tuned for winners tomorrow night.

UPDATE  I can go further! Thanks to Michael McGough for the reminder that I forget to include this duet by Stacey Kent and Suzanne Vega. Stacey Kent has been in previous installments and (spoiler alert!) you will see references to her again. But here they are together.

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Also forgot to include this one by Yo-Yo Ma, apparently from a concert in Taiwan, with singer Rosa Passos. See what you think.

Yo-Yo Ma is obviously one of the world’s great musical figures, but to my taste this doesn’t display him or the song to maximum effect. Still, let’s wait for the official results tomorrow!

For me the lure of Bossa Nova sound is the power of the dream of a time before—before technology, before baby boomers and their new aesthetic—with the winning formula—the sound of a jazz combo.

I was born in the early part of the seventies, so for me it is also the mystery longing for a time I never knew.

And while this version is not a duet with Tom, at the end of the song we still get a duet, but this time it is between the duet Elis and the piano.

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The same reader in Denmark points us to what is apparently a rare, original, semi-garage-sounding very early rendition of the song, in Portuguese, by Jobim himself:

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A reader in the U.S. sends a link to another very early Jobim rendition, but this time singing what I believe to be his own English rendition of the lyrics.

Antonio Carlos Jobim - Waters of March from MXSXK on Vimeo.

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And to close the loop on the Regina/Jobim combos, here is another duet, this time with Jobim playing a flute:

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From the American jazz singer Mark Murphy:

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Thanks to all. Stay tuned for the results.

No. 1: Our winner. Really, there was never any contest here. It’s the duet between Elis Regina and Antonio Carlos Jobim himself, mentioned in the first entry of this series.

Judge’s explanation? Well, just watch the video. But: the playfulness, intimacy, and perfect timing of their interaction; the centrality of the song’s hypnotic words and musical line; and the realization that the actual guy who wrote this song!!! is the one we see singing it. This is not even considering Regina’s cigarette late in the video.

A reader from Denmark argued yesterday that this version was less austerely beautiful than some others, comparable to Mad Men set in the bell-bottomed 1970s rather than the skinny-tie early 1960s. I understand the point. But this song came out in the 1970s! And the video is remarkable.

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Tie for No. 2, honored finalists, female vocalist division: Stacey Kent and Suzanne Vega singing in English, and Susannah McCorkle, singing in Portuguese and English. Judge’s explanation: I like the way these women sound.

In Kent’s case, I have liked her French-language solo version (which you can see here) but on reflection am won over by the duet quality of her English-language appearance with Vega.

As for McCorkle, I love her voice and tone, am moved by her sad story, and like how she applies her UC Berkeley linguistics training to her bi-lingual version of the song. You hear her singing over the closing credits for the movie Comedian.

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Also Tied for No. 2, honored finalists, auteur division. Two very different presentations. First is David Byrne’s and Marisa Monte’s bi-lingual Portuguese/English duet. This one surmounts one of my biases, in that it is very clearly playing with the song. From Byrne’s singing to the dramatic instrumentation, it’s more his style than Jobim’s. But to my taste it’s effective enough to deserve recognition. Also, Marisa Monte has a beautiful voice.

Which brings us to more or less the opposite extreme in auteur versions, the unadorned simple power of João Gilberto’s voice-and-guitar Portuguese version. For the first 20 years of my exposure to the song, this is the version I had heard most often. It may do more than any of the others to underscore the zen circularity of the song’s patterns. If there were a Shaker version of bossa nova it might sound like this.

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We can’t all be winners! But for readers who (somehow) have not yet had enough of this song, I pass along an astonishing note I received late last night from a reader in North Carolina:

Boulder, Colo., public-radio station KGNU featured three solid hours of Aguas de Marco on June 29, 2007, during the "99 and Barry" show. Hosts Barry Gilbert and his wife Kathleen (aka "Agent 99") collected at least 43 versions of the song and aired as many as they could between noon and 3 p.m. [JF note: Jeez! And I thought I was letting this run on a little more than necessary...]

The playlist seems to have disappeared, but wonderfully, for fans of the song like me, the Gilberts zipped the mp3s into four files that remain on the internet.

I agree with you that it's one of the world's greatest songs. Every year in March I load Aguas de Marco on my iPod and listen to different versions while walking on the greenway trail [in his part of North Carolina].

For my money, the studio version sung by Tom Jobim and Elis Regina is #1.[Judges agree!]

Three hours of Aguas, waiting for you!

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And from a reader who spent part of his youth in Brazil, these valedictory thoughts:

Three comments on your "final" installment (based on your past practice  I have a feeling that there still might be a sequel...). [Ahem]

1. As someone who came of age in Brazil in the late seventies and eighties I can safely say that the female voice in the Charlies Sheen video is not a native speaker of Portuguese (Brazilian or European).  One giveaway is the lack of openness of "e"  and "o" vowels, in words like mistério and sozinho.   So if it's lip-synched the producers didn't bother to procure a native language singer (which would be in perfect keeping with the overall cheesiness of the production).

2. You point to one French version, and of all the non-Portuguese versions, for me French captures the original the best, no doubt because the lexical and grammatical similarity of the two languages makes for a very idiomatic translation.  But you fail to mention one of the greats of French chanson doing his Les eaux de mars.  Moustaki had a "Brazilian" phase based on spending time in Brazil and released a CD with several Brazil-themed songs and covers, and this is one of them. [Video is here.]

3. If I had to categorize all the versions of the song, the top-level split, even before language or style, would be whether it's sung solo or as a duet. About 50% of the charm of the old Elis/Tom recording comes from the interlacing of female and male voices, the ping-pong of the verses.  Most of the other male/female duet versions regardless of language get that about right, and it makes them far superior to all others, IMO. [JF: The judges agree]

I believe that this really is fim do cominho on this theme. Thanks to all participants, and to Jobim and those he inspired.  

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We’ve gone this far, why not a little more! Here is a lusher-sounding version with jazz-group backup, flutist, female chorus, and trio of male singers, one of whom is Tom Jobim himself. As happens to us all, he is a decade older and a little heavier than in the glory of his early-1970s duet with Elis Regina. But here goes, with the others in the trio being Chico Buarque and Caetano Veloso:

The reader who sent in this orchestral version adds:

There are many versions in Gal Costa’s pure, beautiful voice, including on the album Rio Revisited with Jobim [for instance this one].

She’s one of the four Doces Bárbaros from Bahía — along with Maria Bethânia, Gilberto Gil, and Caetano Veloso.

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We’ve gone this far ….  So now I give you Stevie Wonder, introducing Tom Jobim’s grandson Daniel, live in concert!