VA - Bossa Nova: The Smoothest Tunes For The Coolest People (2003) 4CD Box Set

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VA - Bossa Nova: The Smoothest Tunes For The Coolest People (2003) 4CD Box Set

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Bossa Nova translated as the "new beat" or "the new style", grew out of Rio De Janeiro in 1958. The instigators were a handful of artists with a desire to break from tradition, developing the samba rhythms with the influence of cool American jazz to find a music with such a warm soul and natural rhythm that no-one can help but tap and sway to its beat. Bossa Nova is palm trees swaying, it is like melting sugar in hot coffee, it is the setting sun and warm sand underfoot. It is the sound and beat of Brazil, it is one of the world's coolest musical styles and it remains to this day one of the world's great musical treasures.

The Brazilian musical style that conquered the world since the beginning of the 1960’s has a curious history that dates back to the late 1940’s, when, after the war, the world witnessed the rise of the international phonographic industry. With the end of global conflict, both 78-rpm foreign language records - mainly American -and multinational recording companies began to emerge in Brazil. In the mean time, it was the fan clubs that were responsible for spreading the latest music, and it was through one of them that Frank Sinatra came to influence Brazilian music.

Gathering Sinatra and Brazilian singer Dick Farney’s fans together, the ‘Sinatra-Farney Fan Club’ - based for less than two years (1949-1950) at Tijuca, a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro - offered the fans the opportunity to not only listen to their idols but also to great foreign jazz. This was also happening in Sao Paulo, where jazz groups were being formed. But these groups were different from the vocal groups that had existed in Rio since the 1940's.

Having been the piano player with the Cassino da Urca’s orchestra, Dick Farney went to America with a one-year contract with NBC Radio, as soon as it was clear that the Brazilian President intended to close all casinos in the country. When Farney came back, his fan club was all but over - but many people, such as Joao Donato, Johnny Alf, Paulo Moura and Doris Monteiro, had emerged during his absence. Soon-to-be important names also had parallel paths: Vinicius de Moraes, Antonio Carlos (Tom) Jobim, and Luiz Bonfa among others would appear from established vocal groups like Anjos do Inferno, Garotos da Lua, Bando da Lua and Namorados da Lua, and Os Cariocas.

From the Brazilian state of Bahia, the singer and guitar player Joao Gilberto arrived in Rio de Janeiro at the end of the 40’s and joined the Garotos da Lua until 1952, when he became a solo artist and recorded his first 78-rpm record on the Copacabana label. At that time, the southern area of Rio witnessed the multiplication of night clubs and discos offering live music - and in these places there developed at the same time talents such as Jobim, Bonfa, Dolores Duran, Maysa, Mariza, Milton Banana, Billy Blanco and many others. Journalists and critics who stimulated the clubs would become, in the following years, song writers -especially, Antonio Maria and Ronaldo Boscoli.

Many of these artists wrote songs and joined in partnerships, especially Jobim - with his friend Newton Mendonca, and with the musician Billy Blanco, with whom he composed “Sinfonia do Rio de Janeiro” (Rio de Janeiro symphony) in 1954. Recorded by Continental, the 10'' record was a fiasco - even though it had as special guest the famous singer Lucio Alves (Dick Farney’s greatest rival in the fans’ hearts]. The Jobim-Blanco writing partnership composed “Teresa na Praia” right after that. It was recorded by the unexpected duo, Farney and Alves, in 1954. The song was a huge success and made Jobim even better known in the music world.

When the diplomat and cultural promoter Vinicius de Moraes decided to look for a composer for his play Orfeu da Conceicao in 1956, he found in Jobim the ideal partner. A self-taught arranger hired by Odeon, Jobim did the job and his record label (which inaugurated the most famous partnership of what would later come to be known as Bossa Nova) released the record. At about the same time, Roberto Menescal and Carlos Lyra met and decided to open a guitar school in Copacabana. One of their first students was the young Nara Leao.

When the guitar school closed, Nara’s apartment ended up being the place where everybody who enjoyed new young music got together and played acoustic guitar. Ronaldo Boscoli, who frequented the top music hotspots in Rio, heard about the jam sessions and also showed up - adding one more member to a group that already included Luiz Carlos Vinhas, Dori Caymmi and the Castro Neves brothers.

Forward to 1957: after a bad start as a solo artist, Joao Gilberto returned to Rio after two years touring in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Minas Gerais, and Bahia. He then met the singer Tito Madi and stayed in his apartment. After that, Joao moved to the singer Sergio Ricardo’s place. He was then playing with the singer [and ex-girlfriend] Sylvinha Telles and, through the Trio Irakitan, he met Menescal, who took him to the jam sessions at Leao’s apartment. Qn one of those evenings, with Carlos Lyra and Menescal, Joao met a photographer who shot the album covers at the Odeon label and who, impressed by Gilberto’s musicality, decided to introduce him to Jobim at the studio.

The arranger, who had recently finished “Chega de Saudade” with his partner Vinicius, saw in Joao’s voice and guitar the perfect interpreter for the new song. Before recording it, however, Joao Gilberto accompanied Elizeth Cardoso in the recording session of the important LP Cancoes do Amor Demais - made up of songs by Jobim and Vinicius and that became a milestone in the history of Bossa Nova.

In 1958, Joao Gilberto recorded a 78-rpm record of “Chega de Saudade”. Off the back of its success, Bossa Nova arrived at radio stations and conquered crowds. Months later, with “Desafinado”, the style was finally given a name: “This is Bossa Nova, this is very natural”.

Between 1959 and 1960, Jobim produced a vast number of songs and records. Besides the first three fundamental Joao Gilberto LPs, there were those by Sylvinha Telles and many others -as well as the participation in the soundtrack of Orfeu Negro, the French film version of the 1959 musical Orfeu do Carnavai Luiz Bonfa was the main writer involved in the soundtrack and began an international career in the beginning of the 60s, when Joao Donato was also beginning his career in America.

In the mean time, in Brazil, the first Bossa Nova music festivals took place in Rio de Janeiro, featuring many of the aforementioned artists as well as Alayde Costa, and Norma Bengell, among others. Magazines and TV networks managed to spread the movement on a national level. The year was 19BO and Bossa Nova had already dominated the studios and record companies. It was also the year that Carlos Lyra and Baden Powell were hired by Philips to record their first albums.

During their trips to Brazil at the beginning of the 60’s, Sarah Vaughan, Lena Horne and Nat King Cole discovered Bossa Nova. The guitar player Charlie Byrd bought many records and Tony Bennett came to check out the movement. Herbie Mann participated in a jazz festival in 1961, and decided to record with some local artists.

This ever-growing interchange could only lead to the internationalisation of Bossa Nova, which was attracting more and more followers and generating new styles for the Brazilian music, as the ones explored by Wilson Simonal, Jorge Bern, Sylvio Cesar, Pery Ribeiro, Leny Andrade, and so many others. Nightclubs were the real birthplace of music and talent and the Beco das Garrafas -a bar in Copacabana - became the main focal point of Bossa Nova, with the creation of important groups such as Tamba Trio, Bossa Tres, Sexteto Sergio Mendes and Copa Cinco, among others.

Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd re-recorded “Desafinado” in the US and sold one million copies in March 1962. Tom and Vinicius wrote “Garota de Ipanema” and the song is first recorded by Tamba Trio and by Pery Ribeiro and Claudette Soares. A Bossa Nova festival was scheduled at New York’s Carnegie Hall on November 21st of that year -Jobim and a number of Bossa Nova musicians and singers gave a truly memorable performance. Joao Gilberto, Luiz Bonfa, Carlos Lyra, Oscar Castro Neves, Roberto Menescal, Sergio Ricardo, Sergio Mendes, Carmen Costa, Agostinho dos Santos and the guitar player Bola Sete were part of this historical moment which consequently created the opportunity for many of them to move to America. Sergio Mendes and Jobim were the first. In 1963 Jobim released his first record on the American label Verve - the same label as the producer Creed Taylor, who was releasing an LP by Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto, with appearances by Jobim and Astrud Gilberto. “The Girl From Ipanema” would become the biggest international Bossa Nova classic and, as time went by, became one of the most re-recorded songs of all time - only losing out to “Yesterday”, by Lennon & McCartney.

While Tom Jobim, Joao and Astrud Gilberto acclaimed Bossa Nova worldwide, in Brazil many new talents arose and different musical movements were influenced by Bossa Nova. Vinicius de Moraes started new writing partnerships - especially with Carlos Lyra,

Baden Powell and Toquinho, a guitar player with whom he would form a duo in the 70’s. Names such as Elis Regina and Edu Lobo became the first M.P.B. (an acronym for Brazilian popular music in Portuguese) icons, at a time when Bossa Nova was beginning to have political influence. Protest songs had been performed at the music festivals produced by TV stations since 1965 (one year after the beginning of the military dictatorship that remained in Brazil until 1979). At that time, new talents like Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Maria Bethania, and Gal Costa sprang up from the Brazilian state of Bahia; and from another state, Minas Gerais, there was the promising Milton Nascimento.

The dictatorship’s repression of freedom of speech meant that many composers were forced into exile yet the 70’s and 80’s benefitted from the success of Bossa Nova. These years witnessed the collaboration of Jobim with Elis Regina and Edu Lobo, besides the birth of new generation of performers such as Tim Maia, Ney Matogrosso, Joao Bosco, Emilio Santiago, Hyldon, Marina Lima, and Leila Pinheiro. The Brazilian music melting pot revealed hybrid musical influences in Elba Ramalho, Timbalada and Ivete Sangalo, and also showed that new songs as “Slow Motion Bossa Nova”, by Celso Fonseca, can be extremely modem and, at the same time, faithful to the style created 45 years ago.

The CDs that constitute this 4 disc set demonstrate the history and the influences of Bossa Nova. There are many classic recordings, especially in the first two CDs, such as those by Joao Donato, Os Cariocas, Lucio Alves, Roberto Menescal, as well as others from the 60’s.

There is also some material influenced by the Bossa Nova movement, such as the tracks by Nara Leao, Edu Lobo, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, recorded in the MPB and Tropicalia musical movements. In the 70’s, the recordings by Gal Costa and Emilio Santiago follow on from these earlier benchmarks in Bossa Nova, and the collection ends in a melting pot of tradition and influences since then - a 30-year period brilliantly presented in the tracks of the last two CDs of the set.

Liner notes by Marcelo Fróes, March 2003

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VA - Bossa Nova: The Smoothest Tunes For The Coolest People (2003) 4CD Box Set

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VA - Bossa Nova: The Smoothest Tunes For The Coolest People (2003) 4CD Box Set

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