1. Open Your Arms (Let Me Walk Right In) (Jay Livingston/Ray Evans)
    [aka Andança (Danilo Caymmi/Edmundo Souto/Paulinho Tapajós)]
  2. Surfboard (Antonio Carlos Jobim)
  3. Baião Da Garôa (Luiz Gonzaga)
  4. Reach Out for Me (Burt Bacharach/Hal David)
  5. Ole, Ole, Olá (Chico Buarque)
  6. Ponteio (Edu Lobo/José Carlos Capinan)
  7. When It Was Done (Jimmy Webb)
  8. On My Mind (Eumir Deodato/Norman Gimbel)
  9. Just My Love and I (Eumir Deodato/Judy Spencer)
  10. Capoeira (Eumir Deodato)
  11. Truth in Peace (Verdade Em Paz) (Durval Ferreira/Pedro Camargo)

Walter Wanderley – organ, electric harpsichord
Jose Marina – bass  
João Palma – drums
Lulu Ferreira – percussion
Marvin Stamm (solos), John Glasel – flugelhorn
Hubert Laws – flute, piccolo
Donald Ashworth – flute, piccolo, oboe, English horn
George Marge, Stan Webb – flute  
Lewis Eley, Harry Glickman, Gene Orloff, Raoul Poliakin, Max Pollikoff, Matthew Raimondi, Tosha Samaroff, Sylvan Shulman, Avram Weiss – violin  
Harold Coletta, Harold Furmansky – viola
Charles McCracken, George Ricci – cello
Gloria Agostini – harp
Anamaria Valle, Marilyn Jackson, Linda November – vocal (1, 4, 9)
Milton Nascimento – vocal (1)

Produced by Creed Taylor

Rhythm arrangements by Walter Wanderley and Eumir Deodato
String arrangements by Don Sebesky

Originally issued as A&M SP 3018
              also issued as CUANDO OCCURIÓ (A&M HDAS 371-31 [Spain])
              and CUANDO FUE HECHO (A&M SLAM 045 [Mexico])
              and CUANDO LO LOGRAMOS (EMI 10035 [Argentina])

Recorded on December 10 (01, 08), 11 (02-04, 06, 07) and 12 (05, 09-11), 1968, at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

01 published by Jay Livingston Music, Inc./St. Angelo Music (ASCAP)
02 published by Corcovado Music Corp. (BMI)
03 and 11 published by Universal Music Publishing MGB Brasil Ltda. (ASCAP)
04 published by BMG Rights Management (UK) Limited/Casa David/New Hidden Valley Music Co./Songs of Fujimusic (ASCAP)
05 published by Marola Edicoes Musicaes Ltda. (ASCAP)
06 and 09 published by Songs of Universal, Inc. (BMI)
07 published by Audio Arts Publishing Company/Seventh Son Music, Inc. (ASCAP)
08 published by EMI Unart Catalog, Inc./New Thunder Music Co. (BMI)
10 published by EMI U Catalog, Inc. (ASCAP)

(P) 1969

Brazilian organist Walter Wanderley (1932-86) scored a Top 40 hit in 1966 with Marcos Valle’s “Summer Samba.” The entrancing and instantly recognizable tune, taken from Wanderley’s Creed Taylor-produced American debut Rain Forest (Verve), is now too easily regarded as comic shorthand for easy-listening Muzak mush. But such was Walter Wanderley’s bag: a prodigiously melodic sensibility buoyed by the gentlest bossa nova groove ever heard. He is the Oscar Peterson of Brazilian organ. Wanderley’s smooth delivery masked an astounding facility for a complex and formidable attack on the too-often heavy-handed Hammond B-3 organ. There were few who touched the organ with the instant light-as-air distinction Walter Wanderley brought to it.

Credited to the Walter Wanderley Set, the album replicates fellow Brazilian and A&M labelmate Sergio Mendes’ successful Brasil ’66 concept, with singers and rhythm in a Bossa-lite mode. This Set consists of a rhythm quartet, featuring Wanderley on organ and electric harpsichord,1 paired on occasion with four singers. Notable among the singers here is Milton Nascimento, making his American debut on “Open Your Arms.” Rhythm arrangements were provided by Wanderley and Eumir Deodato, who also contributed three strong songs to the set. Don Sebesky added effectively subtle strings to several of the pieces. The album gets its name from Jimmy Webb’s intoxicatingly obtuse and little-known anthem – one of three parts to a suite called “The Hymns from the Grand Terrace” heard on Richard Harris’ 1968 album The Yard Went on Forever – and nods toward the charts with a cover of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Reach Out for Me,” a 1964 hit for Dionne Warwick.

It’s the Brazilian tunes here, though, that make When It Was Done most worthwhile. Wanderley’s talented hands belie his impeccable taste for the music he plays. He always had a keen ear for great melodies, particularly with Brazilian songs, and Luiz Gonzaga’s “Baião da Garôa” ranks high among these. Wanderley alternates keyboards seamlessly, appropriately making rain out of the most intoxicating melody. Another standout is Edu Lobo’s magnificent “Ponteio,”2 in an arrangement (superbly conceived by Deodato and Sebesky) that drives Wanderley to some of his best playing on the record. Deodato contributes three of his own tunes; the breezy “On My Mind,” the single-worthy “Just My Love and I,” with English language lyrics out in front, and the positively intoxicating “Capoeira.”3

The album’s single, Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Surfboard,” should have been the hit that “Summer Samba” was, but Wanderley’s version – among the earliest covers of this 1965 song – served to effectively launch the song into popular consciousness. Here, we’re wading more than surfing, but the warm wave gets a crest of strings that would make Percy Faith and his listeners delight in this little treat. Durval Ferreira’s “Truth in Peace,” which the leader delivers on organ only, is classic Wanderley, also very much in that “Summer Samba” mold that seemed destined for a chart success that never was.

Then again, maybe not. Tastes had changed in the few short years between “Summer Samba” and When it Was Done. For all intents and purposes, bossa nova was done, too. Perhaps that, and not Jimmy Webb’s rococo song, is what lends the album its dire, pessimistic title. If so, Wanderley’s musical response would seem to mirror the REM song that goes “It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.”

When It Was Done is classic Walter Wanderley, tuned intriguingly toward the times, viz. the electric harpsichord. The album stands up well in his discography and, while maybe not among his best, contains several notable performances that can – and should – only be heard here. But people stopped tuning in. Not quite jazz, not quite pop, Wanderley’s blissful blend of Brazilian and bop ended up sounding very much like the sort of thing that wafted from many an upscale lounge in the day. But no lounge lizard ever sounded as powerful or as knowledgeable or as enjoyable as Walter Wanderley – or as good as he sounds here.

About the cover: (1966 – Denmark) Mixing the changes in framing of Betwixt and Between with the mylar framing of Calling Out Loud, Walter Wanderley’s A&M/CTI debut seemed to propose a new direction in design for the label. But these records’ relative lack of success eventually signaled a return to what worked well in the first place. Pete Turner’s horizontally-oriented image is tailor-made for the larger gatefold presentation, a luxury unduly denied him here. When it was done, the smaller photo still casts a strong, moody glow (that deserved better). There is a stunning similarity in this photo to the barren landscape Turner captured in his “Blue Horse,” featured on the cover of Hubert Laws’ Crying Song. Call this one “Blue Beachcombers,” an ideal complement to the beach-worthy sambas Wanderley and company brew up here. (Designer Rene Schumacher would curiously employ the mylar frame again for the 1976 CTI/Kudu album Capricorn Princess by Esther Phillips.)

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