Russell playing guitar

Russ loved the music of Brazilian artists Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes. When he was home he sometimes spent hours a day playing music, both guitar and piano—and in recent years it was often a version of a piece by one or both of these two men. Using the Macintosh software GarageBand, he would make multi-track recordings of his favorite pieces, playing all the parts himself. In the photo below, he's playing for friend, Rick Creelman, who shared a love for this poignant music.

Listen to Russell playing A Felicidade.



Russ learned Portuguese so that he could understand and sing these songs in their original language. For those of us who don't know Portuguese, here is an English version of the lyrics of:

A Felicidade

Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes

Sadness has no end,
Happiness does.
Happiness is like a feather
That the wind carries
through the air;
It flies so lightly
But has a brief life,
It needs to have a wind that never stops.
The happiness of a poor man
is like
The great illusion of Carnaval;
People work the whole
year long
For one moment's dream,
To play the part of
A king or a pirate or a gardener,
And everything ends on
[Ash] Wednesday.
Happiness is like a drop
Of dew on a flower's petal,
It shines peacefully then swings lightly
And falls like a tear of love.
My happiness is
dreaming
In the eyes of my girlfriend,
It is like a night that
passes by
In search of the dawn.
Speak quietly please,
So she wakes as happy as the day,
Offering kisses of love.
Happiness is a crazy thing
And so delicate, too;
It has flowers and love of all colors,
It has bird nests,
It has everything nice.
Because it's like this, so
delicate
I always treat it
very well.