More thematically-programmed than many of Verve's compilations, the Jazz 'Round Midnight series focuses on the quiet, romantic side of the label's artists. Astrud Gilberto is a perfect match for this series. Her simultaneously childlike and alluring voice defines the quiet, romantic elements of the bossa nova style she popularized worldwide with the enormous success of Antonio Carlos Jobim's "The Girl from Ipanema," recorded with her then-husband Joao Gilberto and the Stan Getz Quartet in 1963. After that classic, JAZZ ROUND MIDNIGHT focuses little on Gilberto's trademark Brazilian sambas, instead favoring her unique interpretations of jazz standards. Gilberto's bossa nova versions of "Fly Me To the Moon," "The Shadow Of Your Smile," and "Here's That Rainy Day" epitomize romantic languor. "I feel so gay in a melancholy way" goes the key line of the standard "It Might As Well Be Spring," and no sentiments could better encapsulate Astrud Gilberto's gift.