Fifty Years of Bossa Nova!!
by Dave Marshall

Brazil is celebrating 50 years of the Bossa Nova this year. The bossa nova "movement" officially started in 1958 with Chega de Saudade, a song that would launch one of the most successful partnerships in Brazilian music, the tunes of Antonio Carlos Jobim and the interpretation of João Gilberto. Jobim (1927-1994) is acknowledged as one of the most influential popular composers of the 20th century. His songs have been performed by many singers and instrumentalists within Brazil and internationally, and include such hits as The Girl from Ipanema and Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars). Gilberto, known as the "Father of Bossa Nova," is a Grammy Award-winning Brazilian singer and guitarist who many credit with having created the bossa nova beat.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the bossa nova, there are a number of concerts of Brazilian music around the world, including one by Gilberto (who turned 77 this year) at Carnegie Hall as part of the JVC Jazz Festival.

What exactly is bossa nova? It is a rhythm form that grew out of the samba. The modern samba was developed from an earlier Brazilian musical style, the choro. 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. The term finally became known and widely used to refer to a new music style-or "the new thing."

Brazilian jazz is the fusion of North American jazz harmonies and the energizing rhythms of Brazil-such as the bossa nova. Many, however, consider the term bossa nova to be synonymous with Brazilian jazz.

The Bossa Nova Craze

In the spring of 1961, classical/jazz guitarist Charlie Byrd, who studied with Andrés Segovia, traveled to South America on a U.S. State Department sponsored good will trip. While in Brazil, he came in contact with the new exciting jazzy bossa nova sounds being played there. On his return to the States, music and records in hand, he sought out and introduced the new sound to jazz saxophonist Stan Getz, who also fell in love with its easy flowing sounds. They recorded an album titled Jazz Samba which, on its release in early 1962, became an overnight hit-almost unheard of for jazz at the time. By year's end, the bossa nova was a national craze in the U.S.-complete with novelty vendor-generated gadgets, tee shirts, buttons. The craze reached its crest in the mid-to-late 1960s, but its effects remain. Thanks to Charlie's recognition and promotion of Brazilian jazz, it emerged from the night clubs of Rio to become a standard music form throughout the world.

When I completed the first draft of my book Learn to Play Brazilian Jazz Guitar (Mel Bay, September 1999), I was fortunate to get an audience with Charlie Bird. Imagine, two hours with the great guitarist to discuss my project and get his reflections on this wonderful musical genre. He said if you go to Rio you will find there are young guitarist on virtually ever street corner-and damned good ones. This reminded me of the great Brazilian "people's composer," Heitor Villa-Lobos who, growing up in Rio, delighted in participating in the "choro groups," which were small ensembles playing in the streets of Rio. It was in those streets that Villa-Lobos learned to play the guitar-his instrument of choice.

Charlie also said when in Rio, you will notice guitarists never play simple major chords. They always embellish them in some fashion. A C chord becomes a C6th chord or maybe a Cmaj7th-but never a plain-vanilla C major. I had spent the previous summer arranging many Brazilian tunes of Jobim, Bonfa and other great Brazilian masters and subconsciously realized the absence of pure major chords, but Charlie drove the point home with his observation.

Bossa Nova Basics

When I began studying Brazilian rhythms, I read that most Latin rhythms could be traced back to the Afro-Cuban beat, the salsa. I recall in my youth hearing the clave striking a salsa beat in the background of certain Latin dances like the beguine. The salsa beat always impressed to me as a syncopated form of the old "shave and a haircut" knock. To test this impression and to get a better appreciation of the bossa nova, I wrote out the beat and it looks like this:

Deleting the accents on beats 2 and 3 in the first measure, above, creates an entirely different and syncopated form, the Afro-Cuban salsa:

Listen to the Salsa rhythm

If we make one last 'minor' adjustment-this time to beat 3 in the second measure, above-we have the bossa nova pattern, a fully syncopated form

:

Listen to the Bossa Nova rhythm

I don't think for a moment João Gilberto went through this tortured scenario. I believe the rhythm was instinctive and steeped in his musical fiber-as most Brazilians reared on the samba and choro. It's an ingenious pattern that is rhythmically destabilizing since it no longer ends on a strong beat on the quarter note as in the salsa, which is resolved at the end of each second measure. In the bossa nova, the effect of the eighth-note shift in the second beat is to lead the rhythm forward into the next measure which, again, starts the two-measure cycle. This certainly is part of the appeal in playing in bossa nova rhythm-you feel a continuous, gentle forward nudge into the next clave cycle. It's as if the music could-and should-go on forever!

Here's a bossa nova exercise from my book:

Listen to the bossa nova exercise

Happy Anniversary Bossa Nova!!

If you can't attend a Brazilian concert, do yourself a favor and rent a DVD of the classic 1959 film, Black Orpheus, made in Brazil by French director Marcel Camus. It is based on the play Orfeu da Conceição by Vinicius de Moraes, which is an adaptation of the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, setting it in the modern context of Rio during Carnaval. It won the Palme d'Or at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival as well as the 1960 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the 1960 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film.

Among its leading composers for the film are Luis Bonfa and Antonio Carlos Jobim. For the film, Bonfa wrote Manha de Carnival and Samba de Orfeo and Jobim wrote A Felicidade, bringing them and the music of Brazil international attention.

El Aniversario feliz Bossa Nova!! Gracias, João Gilberto!! Dave Marshall (marshallguitarstudio.com)

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