The Bossa Nova as a defined musical movement appeared at the end of the 1950’s. Young brazilian musicians residing in the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro were more interested in jazz than in the brazilian music of that time, which for them sounded very antiquated. And in fact the brazilian songs were sung in a rather artificial manner, with a classical voice, like if they were arias of operas. The lyrics were so speaking archaic as well, the words were not the same used by the average citizens, specially the young ones, in their every day language. These young musicians played in the nightclubs and bars of Rio de Janeiro. Eventhough they were fans of jazz they composed and played essentially brazilian music, just letting consciously or unconsciously jazz elements flow more and more into their work, resulting in that their music sounded differently from what most of the people were used to hear. Frequently they also gathered in each other’s house to make music or just to hear the new long play of jazz that one of them just had eventually bought. They knew they were creating some new kind of brazilian music but they did not have yet a homogeneous musical line that would establish an own musical movement.

In those years a young man from the brazilian State of Bahia called João Gilberto moved to Rio de Janeiro to try a career as a musician. Rio that time was the capital of Brazil and therefore the center of the artistic activities of the country. For some years he played here and there without succsess, not earning money even to pay the rent of an apartment, living as a guest in the apartments of other musicians or their friends. Despaired João Gilberto sometimes went away from Rio de Janeiro for several months. Known for his excentricity he sometimes locked himself in the bedroom or in the bathroom and played on the guitar the same chord for many hours in a row, obsessed by the idea of finding a new way of playing the instrument. And he found it. Not only a new way of playing but also of singing. If until then brazilian singers sang with an opera voice João Gilberto started to sing quietly, in a soft and velvet way, without vibrato. He returned to Rio and went to show his new way of playing and singing to the other musicians. One of the musicians that got impressed was Antonio Carlos Jobim, better known as Tom Jobim. In 1958 the singer Elizete Cardoso recorded an album entitled “Canção do Amor Demais”, entirely with songs from Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes. On this album João Gilberto accompanied Elizete on the guitar in two tracks: “Chega de Saudade” and “Outra Vez”. This was the first recording to register João Gilberto’s new way of playing the guitar. Three months later João Gilberto recorded his own album, singing and playing, with one song from himself, “Bim-Bom”, and the other one from Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, “Chega de Saudade”. The Bossa Nova was officially born.

The youth approved the new musical style that ended up becoming fashion. Almost all young musicians incorporated the different musical form that João Gilberto had developed. The radio stations started to play Bossa Nova and more and more recordings appeared, not only singing music but also instrumental. American and european musicians who traveled to Brazil started to take notice of the Bossa Nova and took the novelty to their countries with them. In 1962 brazilian musicians performed at the Carnegie Hall in New York in a concert entitled “Bossa Nova (New Brazilian Jazz)”. This concert popularized the Bossa Nova internationally. The great representatives of this new musical movement took part in it, like Tom Jobim, João Gilberto, Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal and Luiz Bonfá, among others. In the audience were famous musicians, like Miles Davis, Tony Bennett, Peggy Lee, Herbie Mann and others. The concert was broadcasted live to several american and european radio stations. As a direct consequence of that the major part of these brazilian musicians received invitations to perform or record in the United States. Two weeks after New York the cream of the Bossa Nova musicians performed in another concert, this time at the George Washington Auditorium, after wich they were welcomed by Jacqueline Kennedy at the White House.

From then on the Bossa Nova conquered the entire world. The song “Garota de Ipanema” (“The Girl from Ipanema” in English), from Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, for example, is worldwide one of the most performed and most recorded songs of all times.

Paulo Bitencourt | Bossa Nova Music