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Bossa nova
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Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music popularized by Antônio Carlos Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes and João Gilberto. Bossa nova (which is Portuguese for "new trend") acquired a large following, initially by young musicians and college students. Although the bossa nova movement only lasted six years (1958–63), it contributed a number of songs to the standard jazz repertoire.
musical style evolved from samba but is more complex harmonically and is less percussive.
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Encyclopedia
Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music popularized by Antônio Carlos Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes and João Gilberto. Bossa nova (which is Portuguese for "new trend") acquired a large following, initially by young musicians and college students. Although the bossa nova movement only lasted six years (1958–63), it contributed a number of songs to the standard jazz repertoire.
Origins and history
The musical style evolved from samba but is more complex harmonically and is less percussive. Certain similar elements were already evident, even influencing Western classical music like Gershwin's Cuban Overture which has the characteristic 'latin' clave rhythm. The influence on bossa nova of jazz styles such as cool jazz is often debated by historians and fans, but a similar "cool sensibility" is apparent. Bossa nova was developed in Brazil in 1958 by João Gilberto, with Elizete Cardoso's recording of Chega de Saudade on the Canção do Amor Demais LP, composed by Vinícius de Moraes (lyrics) and Antonio Carlos Jobim (music). The song was soon after released by Gilberto himself.
The initial releases by Gilberto and the 1959 film Black Orpheus brought huge popularity in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America, which spread to North America by way of visiting American jazz musicians. The resulting recordings by Charlie Byrd and Stan Getz cemented its popularity and led to a worldwide boom with 1963's Getz/Gilberto, numerous recordings by famous jazz performers such as Ella Fitzgerald (Ella Abraça Jobim) and Frank Sinatra (Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim), and the entrenchment of the bossa nova style as a lasting influence in world music for several decades and even up to the present.
The first bossa nova single was perhaps the most successful of all time: The Getz/Gilberto recording "The Girl From Ipanema" edited to include only the singing of Astrud Gilberto (Gilberto's then-wife). The resulting fad was not unlike the disco craze of the 1970s. The genre would withstand substantial "watering down" by popular artists throughout the next four decades.
An early influence of bossa nova was the song "Dans mon île" by French singer Henri Salvador, featured in a 1957 Italian movie distributed in Brazil (Europa di notte by Alessandro Blasetti) and covered later by Brazilian artists Eumir Deodato (Los Danseros en Bolero - 1964) and Caetano Veloso (Outras Palavras - 1981). In 2005, Henri Salvador was awarded the Brazilian Order of Cultural Merit, which he received from singer and Minister of Culture, Gilberto Gil, in the presence of President Lula for his influence on Brazilian culture.
Instruments
Bossa nova is most commonly performed on the nylon-string classical guitar, played with the fingers rather than with a pick. Its purest form could be considered unaccompanied guitar with vocals, as exemplified by João Gilberto. Even in larger jazz-like arrangements for groups, there is almost always a guitar that plays the underlying rhythm. Gilberto basically took one of the several rhythmic layers from a samba ensemble (specifically, the tamborim) and applied it to the picking hand.
Though not as prominent as the guitar, the piano is another important instrument of bossa nova; Jobim wrote for the piano and performed on it for most of his own recordings. The piano has also served as a stylistic bridge between bossa nova and jazz, enabling a great deal of cross-pollination between the two.
Drums and other percussion are generally not considered essential bossa nova instruments. Nonetheless, there is a distinctive bossa nova drumming style like that of Helcio Milito and Milton Banana, characterized by continuous eighths on the high-hat (mimicking the samba Pandeiro) and tapping of the rim or "rim clicks" in a clave pattern. The bass drum usually mimics the string bass by playing on "1-&3-&1" as the string bass usually does.
Lush orchestral accompaniment is often associated with bossa nova's North American image as "elevator" or "lounge" music. It is present in much of Jobim's own recordings, and those of Astrud Gilberto. Dusty Springfield would both feature and epitomize this element on her Philips (versus the Phil Ramone version she first recorded) recording of "The Look of Love" (written by Bacharach and David, the song is one of the most respected American pop interpretations of the genre). The unique aural "texture" of bossa strings, when used, is an important secondary characteristic of the genre. Bossa nova is at heart a folk genre, and not all bossa nova records have strings, but the authentic ones that do have them feature them in a most distinct manner.
Structure
Bossa nova is at its core a rhythm based on samba. Samba combines the rhythmic patterns and feel originating in former African slave communities. Samba's emphasis on the first beat carries through to bossa nova (to the degree that it is often notated in 2/4 time). When played on the guitar, in a simple one-bar pattern the thumb plays the bass notes on 1 and 2, while the fingers pluck the chords in unison on the two eighth notes of beat one, followed by the second sixteenth note of beat two. Two-measure patterns usually contain a syncopation into the second measure. Overall, the rhythm has a swaying rather than swinging (as in jazz) feel. As bossa nova composer Carlos Lyra describes it in his song "Influência do Jazz", the samba rhythm moves "side to side" while jazz moves "front to back".
In terms of harmonic structure, bossa nova has a great deal in common with jazz, in its sophisticated use of seventh and extended chords. The first bossa nova song, "Chega de Saudade," borrowed some structural elements from choro; however, later compositions rarely followed this form. Jobim often used challenging, almost dissonant melody lines, the best-known being in the tunes "Desafinado" ("Off-Key"). Often the melody goes to the altered note in the chord. For example, if the chord is DM7#11, the note sung in the melody line there would be G#, or the sharp 11.
Aside from the guitar style, João Gilberto's other innovation was the projection of the singing voice. Prior to Bossa Nova, Brazilian singers used brassy, almost operatic styles; the shy Gilberto dramatically reduced that to a subtle near-whisper.
In the early bossa nova recordings, in terms of lyrical themes and length of songs (typically two to four minutes), bossa nova is very much a "popular music" style. However, its song structure often differs from European and North American rock-based music's standard format of two verses followed by a bridge, and a closing verse; bossa nova songs frequently have no more than two lyrical verses, and many lack a bridge. Some of João Gilberto's earliest recordings were less than two minutes long, and some had a single lyrical verse that was simply repeated.
Origin of the term "bossa nova"
In Brazil, to do something with "bossa" is to do it with particular charm and natural flair, as in an innate ability. In 1932, Noel Rosa used the word in a samba...which went O samba, a prontidão e outras bossas / São nossas coisas, são coisas nossas (The samba, the readiness and other bossas / Are our things, are our things.) As yet, the exact origin of the term "bossa nova" remains uncertain. What certain is that the term "bossa" was used to refer to any new "trend" or "fashionable wave" within the artistic beach-culture of late 1950s Rio de Janeiro. The term finally became known and widely used to refer to a new music style, a fusion of samba and jazz, when the now famous creators of "bossa nova" referred to their new style of work as "a bossa nova", as in "the new thing". .
Brazilian author Ruy Castro, in his book Bossa Nova, says that "bossa" was already in use in the fifties by musicians as a word to characterize someone's knack for playing or singing idiosyncratically. He cites a claim that the term "bossa nova" might have first been used in publicity for a concert given by the Grupo Universitário Hebraico do Brasil (University Hebrew Group of Brazil) in 1958 for a group consisting of Sylvinha Telles, Carlinhos Lyra, Nara Leão, Luizinho Eça, Roberto Menescal, et al.
They were likely using the term "bossa nova" then as a generic reference to what they were doing in music at the time, which had no particular name yet. However, the term took hold as the definition of their own specific artistic creation, which became known as "bossa nova", and is often simply known as "bossa" today.
Later developments
From the mid-nineties, various other European artists reached out to bossa nova for inspiration mixing electronic music into it and bringing new creations sometimes referred to as BossaElectrica, TecnoBossa, etc. which still permeates the air of lounge bars of Europe and Asia today.
From this newer crop of artists came new singers like Bebel Gilberto, daughter of bossa nova co-creator João Gilberto and singer Miúcha, and new European bands like Nouvelle Vague and Koop to name a few, who used both conventional bossa nova style and modern views to further interpret this fabulously soothing style of music that originated in Rio de Janeiro-Brazil back in the 1950s.
Notable bossa nova artists
External links
- , Qual a sua bossa?
- , by ABDB
- , article by Daniella Thompson
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- a short recognition of 50 years on the free podcast on world music
Examples, chords and lyrics
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