Beach Blanket Bossa!
Now that the Bossa beat has taken a step into its second 50 years, it’s fair to ask: What is it about Bossa Nova that makes us feel so good? Why does that simple little guitar rhythm free our musical spirit like no other? How is it that this ‘adult-aged’ musical style, created half a world away in a language that only a relatively small part of the planet speaks today is still defined by its youthful, timeless qualities and universal appeal?
Bossa Nova was born on July 10th 1958 at the old Odeon recording studios in Rio de Janeiro. That’s the date that João Gilberto finally got it right.
It had been a long road. Gilberto, who had come to Rio from Bahia several years earlier as a talented but irresponsible and unfocused guitar-playing singer had worn out his welcome with the musical community there. So he left under a self-imposed sabbatical. What happened after that was musical magic.
He’d discovered the hint of a new beat, one which combined Brazil’s Samba style with a jazzy swing. In fact, João Gilberto could hear a whole rhythm section – drums, bass and the piano – inside of it. But something was missing, so he wrote a little song called ‘Bim Bom’ which became the Petrie dish for the sound he heard in his head.
As with most experiments, what Gilberto’s sound needed was incubation. It’s said that he’d play his song over and over, non-stop for days at a time. João Gilberto literally locked himself away from the rest of the world, while the rhythm simmered.
When it was finally perfected, Gilberto returned to Rio eager to play ‘Bim Bom’ for anyone who would listen, but few were ready to accept either him or his new rhythm. It was revolutionary, and while it shared nothing with its American counterpart rock and roll, this yet-unnamed new beat sounded oddly out of place with Brazil’s pop music of the 50′s – languid, emotionally drenched boleros and Samba-cançãos which carried the yearning of love lost, love wanted, or life waiting to be lived.
Next time you’re surfing the Internet, click over to Connectbrazil.com and type in keyword: ‘Bossa’ to listen to Brazil’s music before the birth of Bossa Nova. First, listen to Cauby Peixoto’s 1956 radio hit, ‘Conceição’. Then, listen to João Gilberto’s ‘Bim Bom’ and you’ll appreciate the difference!
João Gilberto’s persistence paid off in May of 1958, when Antonio Carlos Jobim, who was a house arranger for Odeon Records, invited Gilberto to play his new guitar rhythm on two songs for a new recording by one of Brazil’s great ladies of Samba, Elizeth Cardoso. Cardoso – who hadn’t had a hit song in several years – decided to take a chance by recording an entire album of songs composed by Jobim and his writing partner, Vinicius de Moraes.
The record was titled ‘Canção Do Amor Demais’ (Song For An Excessive Love) and because it was released on an obscure little non-commercial record label, none of the studio musicians were listed on the album jacket. So there was no way of knowing who the guitar player was and what that unusual rhythm he was playing meant to Brazilian music.
Cardoso’s record was a flop. But in rehearsals, João Gilberto had discovered the perfect song for his new rhythm. And by the time Rio’s record stores were playing Cardoso’s version of ‘Chega De Saudade’ (No More Blue), João Gilberto was already back in the studio with Antonio Carlos Jobim, working on his own version. It was the one minute and fifty-nine seconds that changed everything.
You can listen on-line at Connectbrazil.com to Elizeth Cardoso singing ‘Chega De Saudade’ with João Gilberto’s guitar backing her up. Now listen to João Gilberto’s version, recorded three months later. The guitar is the same, but Cardoso’ melodramatic voice and arrangement has been replaced with Gilberto’s light and silky smooth style. This is the first real Bossa Nova song.
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So why take up so much of your time to explain how Bossa Nova came to be? Because so much of the music we listen to today owes a great debut to this story and especially to João Gilberto – and it’s been that way for generations. Just consider: Going into 1958 the US radio charts showed hit songs from Elvis Presley (‘All Shook Up’), The Diamonds (‘Little Darlin’) and Pat Boone (‘Love Letters In the Sand’) as rock and roll found its voice. Its easy to see that both Brazil’s Samba rhythm and its distant US cousin, the blues, were igniting a cultural shift like none before.
But no one today would say that the sound of those early rock and roll hits is fresh or contemporary. In fact, rock has grown well beyond its origins – to the point where today’s top hits bear little resemblance to those early songs.
Bossa Nova’s story is similar, but with an important difference Just like rock and roll, the Bossa beat quickly found universal acceptance – especially on the 60’s pop charts France and Italy, and here in the US, where Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto and Sergio Mendes became pop icons. They kept the public’s ear for decades and opened doors for thousand of Brazilian musicians who routinely provided the “next Brazilian wave” for us to enjoy. Those waves continue to influence American pop, too.
Some of these examples are easy to spot, others are camouflaged by the ever-changing face of pop music, like Robin Thicke’s ‘Lost Without You’. Songs like this come along every once in a while to remind us that Bossa Nova, just like the girl from Ipanema, is forever young.
And that proves the point: The reason why Bossa Nova continues to enjoy popularity decade after decade, wave after wave is because – unlike rock – there’s never been a need to mess with perfection.
And we have passion and persistence of one man – João Gilberto – to thank for it.
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Scott Adams hosts the commercially syndicated radio show, The Sounds of Brazil, and publishes Connectbrazil.com – ‘Let The Music Take You There’. He can be reached at publisher@connect-brazil.com.
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