Bossa nova

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Bossa Nova
Stylistic origins:	American jazz and Brazilian samba
Cultural origins:	Late 1950s Rio de Janeiro's southside
Typical instruments:	Acoustic guitar, piano, electronic organ, acoustic bass and drums
Mainstream popularity:	Widely known in Brazil, also significant in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan. <tr><th align="center" bgcolor="olive" colspan=2 valign="top">Subgenres</th></tr><tr><td align=center colspan="2" valign="top">Tropicalismo (Tropicalism)</td></tr><tr><th align="center" bgcolor="olive" colspan=2 valign="top">Other topics</th></tr><tr><td align=center colspan="2" valign="top">Bossa Nova (dance)</td></tr>

Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music created by Antônio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto and first introduced in Brazil by Gilberto's recording of "Chega de Saudade", in 1958, a song written by Antônio Carlos Jobim, first released as a single, and shortly thereafter as the album by Gilberto, bearing the same title as the song (1959).

With João Gilberto as "guru", bossa-nova acquired a large following right away, initially comprising mainly young musicians and college students. Since then people of all ages and walks of life have become admirers of the style.

1 Origins and history
2 Instruments
3 Structure
4 Origin of the term "bossa nova"
5 Later developments
6 Important bossa nova artists
7 References
8 See also
9 External links

[edit] Origins and history

The musical style evolved from samba but is more complex harmonically and less percussive. The influence on bossa nova of North American jazz styles such as cool jazz is often debated by historians and fans, but a similar "cool sensibility" is apparent.

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 there 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.

While the popularity of bossa nova waned by the late 1960s, it exerted a great influence on subsequent Brazilian popular music styles such as tropicália and MPB.

[edit] Instruments

Bossa nova is most commonly performed on the nylon-string classical guitar, played finger style (without 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.

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 percussion are not considered essential bossa nova instruments. Nonetheless, there is a distinctive bossa nova drumming style, characterized by continuous eighths on the high-hat (mimicking the samba tambourine) 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. While it is present in much of Jobim's own recordings, it is rarely heard elsewhere.

[edit] 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 with elements of European march music. Samba's emphasis on the first beat carries through to bossa nova (to the degree that it is often notated in 2/2 time). When played on the guitar, the thumb plays the bass notes on 1 and 3, while the fingers pluck the chords in unison on 1 and 2, delayed on 3. 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".

Here is an example of a basic bossa nova rhythm as would be played on a guitar, using a C6/9 chord.

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" or "Off-Key".

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, the typical structure differs slightly 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 usually have no more than two lyrical verses, and almost never 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.

[edit] 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 empty pockets and other bossas / Are our specialties, are our specialties.)

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.

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Nobody can claim to know exactly how the term "Bossa Nova" came to be. What is certain ^{[citation needed]} is that the term "BOSSA" was used to refer to any new "trend" or "fashionable wave" within the artistic beach-culture of late 1950's Rio de Janeiro^{[citation needed]}. 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"^{[citation needed]}.

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^{[citation needed]}, which became known as "Bossa Nova" then or simply as "Bossa", as we refer to it nowadays.

To this day in Brazil, the word "bossa" when used alone can still be a reference to "style" or "flair", as it was in the days when "bossa nova" was created.

[edit] 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 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 1950’s.

[edit] Important bossa nova artists

[edit] References

Castro, Ruy (trans. by Lysa Salsbury). "Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World." 2000. 1st English language edition. A Capella Books, an imprint of Chicago Review Press, Inc. ISBN 1-55652-409-9 First published in Brasil by Companhia das Letras. 1990.
McGowan, Chris and Pessanha, Ricardo. "The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova and the Popular Music of Brazil." 1998. 2nd edition. Temple University Press. ISBN 1-56639-545-3
Mei, Giancarlo. Canto Latino: Origine, Evoluzione e Protagonisti della Musica Popolare del Brasile. 2004. Stampa Alternativa-Nuovi Equilibri. Preface by Sergio Bardotti and postface by Milton Nascimento.