
When Jobim Sang Off Key in Japan
You sit in your seat at the Hibiya Concert Hall, an outside venue in the style of a Roman amphitheater with its rows of seats that curve in a semi-circle around the stage. A man dressed in a white suit sits at the piano. He looks to be in his late 60s, and there’s a tired look in his eyes behind the round frame of his glasses as he prepares himself for the next number. And then he starts, that melody that you know so well, the one that you have hummed to yourself over and ov