Yet we’re long past the point where pop can’t include all that. Just consider Steely Dan’s “Aja,” an album of luminous jazz modalities that also happens to be the purest pop. Jobim, though he wrote in ...

Bossa nova music has a cool, light feeling, with delicate melodies drifting on gentle rhythms. It floated out of Brazil in the 1960s, spearheaded by Joao Gilberto, Vinicius de Moreas and, of course, ...