Bossa Cabana |
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A birthday collection of the most famous Bossa Nova tunes sung and performed by musicians from the first an second generation of Bossa Nova.
Around 1856, more than 150 years ago, the beaches south of Rio’s centre were practically still in their natural state. A few fishermen’s huts, opossums and armadillos shared the huge, mainly forested coastline. Fifty years later in 1906 the first tunnels had already been built in areas in close proximity to the city, like Leme and Copacabana. Here and there a hut (or cabana) appeared a restaurant, weekend houses of well-to-do Cariocas and a little house from which the first telegraph cable that connected Brazil and Europe led into the sea.
It was 50 years later, 1956, that the Bossa Nova was created here – somewhere in the bars, apartments and cafés of what subsequently became a densely built up area of housing blocks between Leme, Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon.
1956 was also the year that a young man from Bahia by the name of João Gilberto returned to Rio after a long time dealing with a personal crisis. Gilberto had earlier observed washer women on the banks of the Rio São Francisco balancing baskets on their heads and with the song ‘Bim Bom’ (track 18) he created a balanço (swing), that was to imitate in a rhythmic fashion the swing of their hips and steps. He also discovered a new way of singing which was in no way a belcanto, but rather a form of slight nasal voice lineation. That basically was the first Bossa Nova but neither João Gilberto nor the musicians in Rio knew about that at the time. (In 1963 Tom and Vinicius created a similar memorial with the song ‘Garota de Ipanema’ (track 7) – celebrating a young girl who they watched in admiration almost everyday from their favourite café in Ipanema.) Something new could be felt in the moist Atlantic air over the Rio’s south zone since the mid 1950’s at the latest. But nobody knew anything of it. Antonio Carlos Jobim and his friends experimented with modern sambas that were to be different to the effusive songs of Carmen Miranda or the sambas of the carnaval. There were more than enough role models and forerunners of poetic soft sambas with guitar accompaniment: composers from the samba schools like Cartola, Nelson Cavaquinho, Lupiscinho Rodriguez or Noel Rosa had continued what geniuses like the black Pixinguinha had begun with ballads like ‘Carinhoso’ that until today have still not been forgotten. Jobim himself had written ‘Teresa da Praia’ in 1953, a kind of chamber musical samba canção which became a great success. Another returning soul: In 1956 the producer, singer and composer Aluísio de Oliveira returned from the USA back to Rio and became artistic director of the EMI Odeon. He had left for North America as the manager of the vocal group Bando da Lua with Carmen Miranda and had produced films for Walt Disney. He was soon to become Brazil’s most important producer of shows and records and remained so for decades. And now João Gilberto was back in Rio as well and sang his ‘Bim Bom’ song to everyone, providing his own guitar accompaniment. He looked for new jobs, came into the bars where his friend Jobim played and used their breaks for short interludes. ‘Bim Bom, Bim Bom, é só isso meu Baião....’ and soon he was beckoned into the recording studio as guitarist to record with the Grande Dama of samba canção Elisete Cardoso. ‘Chega de Saudade’ was recorded with Jobim’s arrangement but was strongly influenced by Joao Gilberto’s novel form of guitar accompaniement. It became nothing more than a promotional version with 2,000 copies and shortly thereafter João Gilberto (1958) sang this samba himself and recorded it on a single, B-side: ‘Bim Bom…’, released of course at Aluísio’s EMI Odeon. (It was nearly 30 years later that João Gilberto filed a lawsuit against this company, which in consequence banned all of his recordings made since 1968 at EMI Odeon from the market.)
That was the official premiere of the Bossa Nova which managed to attract attention in Europe only indirectly via North America. Caterina Valente was performing in Rio and travelled directly to the USA for one of her appearances in the Perry Como Show and introduced the new songs. Musicians from the USA performing in Brazil often brought the music back with them as well and before you knew it Bossa Nova artists were to be seen on the stages of Carnegie Hall in 1962, but more often as nameless stage members in Bossa Nova versions of Jazz stars and as inexperienced composers, whose music rights were stolen from them in both Rio and New York. Brazil was a developing country at that time and likewise in respect to copyright protection laws. Basic human rights were also eliminated by the military that in a coup d’état in 1964 seized power. It is possible that the Bossa Nova, despite all its playful qualities, had to give way to the politically loaded songs of the time that depicted Brazilian reality as it was. It had to relinquish its superior position to the traditional sambas and numerous music forms of the hinterland that intellectual musicians dug up and superimposed Bossa Nova structure upon, until finally Brazil was mowed over by the Beatles and the Stones and hashish and flower power. At that time most Bossa Nova artists and composers long since got on well.
In the USA Bossa Nova wasted away in jazzy, plush ambiences – a just punishment for the fact that the Jazz faction stretching from L.A. to Berlin and really only knowing Bossa Nova from musicians like Stan Getz or Herbie Mann, made a Brazilian variation of cool jazz out of it, e.g. you would say Bossa Nova was practically American. Astrud Gilberto must be seen in this connection, she started her career as a singer in the USA as she was encouraged by Stan Getz to sing a few takes in a New York studio, which she never regretted. Antonio Carlos Jobim, who wrote most of the world famous Bossa Novas, always denied this Jazz influence on his own music and Carlos Lyra even wrote a scathing song about this (‘Influênca do Jazz’, track 16). It may be that Jazz musicians and critics have out of simple lack of knowledge wrongly interpreted the Jazz affinity of some Brazilians like Baden Powell or Johnny Alf. Johnny Alf was a singer and pianist in Boates (night clubs) like Dick Farney and both had Blues and Jazz musicians as their role models and their interpretations were influenced by Jazz and they made bluenotes and disharmonic elements familiar to Jobim and others. Jobim must have known this, as he had studied with H. J. Koellreutther who was establishing European modern music in Brazil. Later on, with names like Edu Lobo, the Zimbo Trio, Hermeto Paschaol a strong interest in Jazz arose. The Jobim-Vinicius-Gilberto trio and many other Bossa Nova creators have presented with Bossa Nova modern samba canções for a global audience, many of which are to this day unforgotten. Some of their most beautiful moments are compiled on this CD. More info on the artists featured on Bossa Cabana. 50 Years Of Eternal Music |