The Jazz Samba Project: What’s Old is New (Part Two) — Look Back in Delight

Music that Soothes the Soul

Veronneau: Jazz Samba Project, with Lynn Veronneau and husband Ken Avis (far right)

It was such a pleasure to have met and chatted with musician Ken Avis (albeit briefly) on Saturday, June 7, 2014, after the Jazz Samba Project Symposium. A former organizational development consultant with the World Bank Group, Ken is a sharp and knowledgeable music lover, especially of Brazil’s music. I congratulated him and his co-curator, Georgina Javor, for a most enjoyable and thoroughly professional presentation, which brought a variety of speakers together. Among them were teacher, lecturer, musician and journalist David R. Adler; teacher, composer and bassist Leonardo Lucini; editor, producer and NPR host Tom Cole; multi-Emmy Award-winning sound engineer Ed Greene; and professor and author Charles A. Perrone.

The symposium itself was a huge success, as was my talk the following Sunday afternoon with drummer Buddy Deppenschmidt (see the following link to my interview: https://josmarlopes.wordpress.com/2015/12/28/its-jazz-samba-time-celebrating-the-50th-anniversary-of-the-landmark-bossa-nova-album/). Buddy turned out to be a terrific interview subject: involved, alert and ready with a memorable line or two. It was incredible how he managed to recall events from fifty years back with such facility, and in precise detail. And having Jazz Samba’s original sound engineer Ed Greene on the stage and alongside him was icing on the bossa nova cake.

My only regret was that my wife and I missed the Sunday afternoon performance of Ken’s group Veronneau with German-born harmonicist Hendrik Meurkens. Regrettably, we had to rush back to our hotel to catch the shuttle to Dulles Airport. I also regret not having seen the world premiere of Ken Avis and Bret Primack’s documentary, Bossa Nova — the Brazilian Music that Seduced the World.  I asked Ken afterwards if and when the documentary would be made public, either online or on his group’s Website. He was kind enough to send me the link to Primack’s YouTube channel where I could watch the film “in the raw.” Ken assured me it was chock full of fascinating tidbits that a history maven and pop-music buff such as myself would be thrilled to have at my disposal.

While we’re on the subject, Ken also provided me with a copy of a CD he recorded in 2012. Under the title Jazz Samba Project, it was his group’s homage to the milestone Jazz Samba album from 1962. My initial thought was that it was smooth sounding, suave and sophisticated, as only bossa nova was meant to be. The lilting rhythms and additional percussion effects were added virtues, while his wife Lynn’s easy-going vocals fit in beautifully with what I like to refer to as the “Astrud aesthetic” (named after Astrud Gilberto, the former wife of bossa nova pioneer, João Gilberto, who shot to stardom on the strength of her English-language rendition of “The Girl from Ipanema”).

I did have a few reservations with Lynn’s Portuguese pronunciation, though. Heck, even pop singer Lani Hall, one of two artists featured (the other being Janis Hansen) with Sérgio Mendes and Brasil ’66 on their many A&M albums, wasn’t all that perfect. Still, it did not detract from the generally relaxed vibes I got from the players. And the recording venue, All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington, D.C., where the original Jazz Samba sessions took place, was heaven sent. While duplicating three of the selections from the original record (“È Luxo Só,” “One Note Samba,” and “Samba Triste”), Veronneau also covered the Bob Marley tune “Waiting in Vain,” Jorge Ben’s perennial “Más Que Nada,” Jobim-Mendonça-Gimbel’s “Meditation,” one of Baden Powell and Vinicius de Moraes’ afro-sambas, “Samba Saravah,” the Joseph Kosma-Johnny Mercer standard “Autumn Leaves,” and lastly Jobim’s “Wave.”

Getting back to the bossa nova documentary, Ken mentioned to me that “it’s still a work in progress and won’t see the light of day formally until [he and Bret] are able to raise a bit more money for film festival showings, etc.” All the same, Ken urged me to take a gander at it. “I’m sure you will have seen many of the clips before,” he added, “but there’s a lot of new original interview material in there too. There are some things we will change but this is it as of today!”

Bandleader, musician, lecturer, producer and playwright Ken Avis (Photo: Strathmore)

Ken was absolutely spot-on regarding the documentary. There were clips (most of them from second-generation footage) that I had never seen before: a rare showing of composer-guitarist Luiz Bonfá with Perry Como performing “A Day in the Life of a Fool” (known in Brazil as “Manhã de Carnaval”), the persnickety João Gilberto in an extended take on “Desafinado,” glimpses of Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd in concert, Elis Regina with Tom Jobim hamming it up on “Águas de março” (“Waters of March”), Vinicius and Tom in a rendition of “Felicidade,” and an interview with Charlie Byrd’s brother, Joe Byrd. In that one, Joe Byrd claimed, in his elegantly patrician Virginia accent, that brother Charlie called on the services of “two German drummers” — Philadelphia-born Buddy Deppenschmidt and Bill Reichenbach — to man the rhythm section (see the link to the video: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjE3au2p4TXAhVBfiYKHVpiA2EQtwIIJjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fvimeo.com%2F95835648&usg=AOvVaw0ijjbYF5DjAkC6YrGGGL7s ).

As for my talk with the “German drummer” William “Buddy” Deppenschmidt III (who is of Danish ancestry on his mother’s side), Ken had this to say: “I wish I could have caught the Sunday morning session — I heard from a couple of people who had been there, including the [Brazilian] drummer Vanderlei Pereira that it was interesting and entertaining. I [felt that] Buddy and his companions had a really good time at the festival and were delighted at the opportunity to be part of it, which for me is one of the best things we achieved.”

I asked Ken if he had ever heard of David Chesky and his audiophile label, Chesky Records. “I can recommend many of their CDs,” I wrote back, “especially the one called Club de Sol that highlighted composer-musician Chesky on piano with Brazilian percussionist Café, who my wife and I had met when we lived in New York (see the following link to my story, “Jazz Can’t Resist Brazil”: https://josmarlopes.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/jazz-cant-resist-brazil/). “It’s a wonderful album of all original material, very bossa-nova tinged and jazz oriented — plus it swings, man, it swings! I guarantee you will love it if you haven’t heard it yet.

“I also have two of their earlier compilations (they double as sound checks, too), some of which featured singer Ana Caram, guitarist Badi Assad (she is part of an incredibly talented guitar-playing family that includes her two brothers, Sergio and Odair Assad), Livingston Taylor (James Taylor’s brother), Orquesta Nova, and a bunch of others. It’s all very eclectic stuff.”

My suggestion must have caught Ken’s ear. He wrote back to me after about a week: “When you mentioned Chesky I was aware of the label and a couple of days later I pulled out a compilation CD from them which I had bought years ago. It introduced me to [Bahian-born] Rosa Passos, who had a version of “Girl from Ipanema,” a Colombian singer Marta Gomez, who did a beautiful arrangement of “Cielito Lindo,” and included a bunch of other great tracks such as a bass and male vocal version of “Round Midnight.” If we were with a label, that’s the one I’d like to be with!”

With that said, I made up my mind to write to videographer and music journalist Bret Primack directly and introduce myself. Having put in a plug for one of my all-time favorite albums, I decided to pull out a couple of those Chesky CDs I had told Ken about. As I began to peruse the contents, lo and behold, I realized that Bret had written the liner notes himself. No wonder Ken knew about the label!

Call Me, On the Line

Videographer and music journalist Bret Primack (Photo: Optimise, Kathleen Witten-Hannah)

It was no surprise to me that Bret was a Brazilian music lover, as were David and his brother Norman Chesky. They owned (and founded) the Chesky Records label back in the late 1980s and continue to do so today. I quickly answered back: “I love their stuff! I have several excellent CDs of theirs including the two demo discs, which I still use on occasion to get the imaging right on my speakers.”

I felt an inspiration coming. Here is the gist of what I wrote to Bret: “I got your e-mail address from Ken Avis, who I met last weekend at the Strathmore after the Jazz Samba Symposium. Ken was kind enough to send me the video link to your film, Bossa Nova: The Music that Seduced the World, which I thoroughly enjoyed. My congratulations! I know he spoke with you about the making of, and genesis, of the film. I’d like to correspond with you about it, if you have some free time.

“The interesting thing is that I recommended several recordings to Ken of Brazilian music on the Chesky label. He told me he was familiar with the label. The CDs I suggested were a recital by [Brazilian jazz singer] Leny Andrade with pianist Fred Hersch — in particular, her powerful singing of the song “Wave,” which I think is a standout; and David’s Club de Sol. I would have added Herbie Mann’s Caminho de Casa (see the link to my article about this album: https://josmarlopes.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/a-brazilian-at-heart-for-jazz-artist-herbie-mann-brazil-was-home-too/), but his name did not come up in our conversation.

“Coincidently, I pulled out Caminho de Casa and a Luiz Bonfá CD (also on Chesky) called Non-Stop to Brazil, both of which are favorites of mine. As I looked over the liner notes, I noticed that YOU wrote the notes! I knew, by the way you and Ken had discussed bossa nova in your film, that you must love or at least be familiar with Brazilian music. I had no idea you wrote the liner notes to my favorite works!” I also told Bret about my having met the percussionist Café.

“Please let me know if we can discuss your film. I even suggested to Ken a possible avenue for funding your project via the Audiovisual and Rouanet Laws in Brazil (I don’t know if they apply here, but you can most certainly give it a try). Ken told me he was going to check into them as well. Anyway, I look forward to hearing from you.”

After several false starts, I was able to speak to Bret. I had no idea the Chesky brothers were his cousins! We had a most satisfactory conversation, for which I thanked Ken. Bret hailed from the suburbs of New York. He started booking bands while still a teenager. Wherever he went, Bret met up with Brazilians who were passionate jazz and music lovers. After years in the city, Bret moved out West — to Tucson, Arizona, where he set up a jazz video outlet. He became known as the Jazz Video Guy. Some of his YouTube videos include “Miles Davis, the Picasso of Jazz,” and a series about the life and work of saxophonist Sonny Rollins. In our talk, Bret hinted that in order to complete the Bossa Nova film project he would need access to better archival footage as well as additional funding sources. Perhaps a trip to Brazil would be in order.

What really got my attention was that Ken mentioned using the unexplored avenue of the theater, by way of a play about the coming of bossa nova to the U.S. (specifically, the Washington, D.C. area). I took advantage of the opportunity to discuss, via our e-mail correspondence, a ready-made theater piece that many authorities consider to be the first (and, to date, only) bossa nova musical. That would be Pobre Menina Rica or “Poor Little Rich Girl,” a 1964 play (in the form of a cabaret piece) with lyrics and text by none other than Vinicius de Moraes, and songs by Carlos Lyra, a still-living icon of the bossa nova era.

Carlos Lyra, Nara Leao, Vinicius de Moraes (with Aloysio de Oliveira, standing) – Pobre Menina Rica (1964)

I told Ken that I had a CD of the music, as well as the original text (in both Portuguese and English) in my possession. “You can read about the musical in Ruy Castro’s book Chega de Saudade, translated under the title Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music that Seduced the World” — a not inconsequential resemblance to Primack and Avis’ film title.

Suffice it to say that the plot line and music for Pobre Menina Rica are definitely of its time. The story is of the “poor-boy-meets-rich-girl” variety, result: love at first sight, the sort of innocent, innocuous fling that prevailed in the mid-1960s. The best examples I could think of were those Frankie Avalon-Annette Funnicello “beach blanket bingo” flicks from the same period. It may not have been what Ken was looking for, but it did touch on themes related to class differences (one of the main characters is a crippled Afro-Brazilian slum dweller, highly reminiscent of Porgy from George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess). Nara Leão and Elis Regina were originally pegged to star in the show when it premiered. In fact, Lyra wrote the musical with Nara in mind: she’s the titular “Poor Little Rich Girl,” which as we know was the title of a Noël Coward song.

I offered to send Ken the text to read over. “You can probably download some of the songs online as well.  If this perks your interest, I can even reach out to my friends in Brazil, Claudio Botelho and Charles Moëller (of Moëller-Botelho) who I have written about extensively on my blog.” For years, Carlos Lyra had been dying for someone to bring his play either to Broadway or to North American theaters in some capacity. It was another way of approaching Ken’s idea, but from a different angle, outside of writing something from scratch (which is more difficult).

However, Ken decided to give the project his own spin, the result of which was an original play called Bossa Fever! — When Samba met Jazz in 1960s Washington DC, with music by his band Veronneau. The world premiere took place in 2015 at the Atlas Performing Arts Center in D.C., as part of the INTERSECTIONS 2015 Festival (here’s the YouTube link to the show: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjg06GilYTXAhVFWCYKHXQjCRwQtwIIJjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DXadG42P5DuA&usg=AOvVaw13PclTp0Xgyoy_XEBq2EFk).

(To be continued…)

Copyright © 2017 by Josmar F. Lopes

‘What is Bossa Nova?’ — Variations on a Theme by One of the Genre’s Cultural Icons

Bossa Nova legend Carlos Lyra (Photo: New York Times)

It’s not often that one gets to communicate with a living legend.

Carlos Lyra — known also by the diminutive “Carlinhos” — is anything but diminutive in his talent and in his abilities. A marvelous singer, songwriter, performer and recording artist, as well as a raconteur par excellence, Lyra, whose name is synonymous with his favorite instrument, the “lyre” (or rather, our modern-day guitar), was present at the dawn of Bossa Nova. His collaborations with such giants of the genre as Vinicius de Moraes, Tom Jobim, Stan Getz, Marcos Valle, Ronaldo Bôscoli, Nara Leão and others is well known to fans of the period.

Now in his early 80’s, Carlos continues to explore the essence of the music he first heard and loved as a boy growing up in the middle-class neighborhood of Botafogo, in Rio de Janeiro.  

Fresh from a live show at the Vivo Rio nightclub with longtime friend and associate, Roberto Menescal, and singer-guitarist Toquinho, the ageless icon has kindly consented to the use of his original blog entry entitled (in Portuguese) “O Que é Bossa Nova?” (“What is Bossa Nova?”). In this highly cultivated piece, Carlos shares with readers the myriad factors that helped shape Brazil’s music and culture.

It’s a view shared strongly by this author as well.   

WHAT IS BOSSA NOVA?

Recently I gave an interview about Bossa Nova for the BBC in London. Knowing that I faced a well-informed audience, I expanded upon my usual responses in a way that was almost cathartic. It became apparent to me that Bossa Nova is a most misunderstood phenomenon that deserves some additional considerations.

To begin with, Bossa Nova shares a strong affinity with the thirteenth century Provençal School, also known as Fin Amors [or “courtly love”]. It was there that Eleanor of Aquitaine, the mother of Richard the Lion Heart, became acknowledged as the poet who surrounded herself with troubadours and minstrels that, through the sound of the lute (the ancestor of the guitar) composed ballads that were whispered in ladies’ ears.

Similarly, Bossa Nova is also whispered and never yelled. Romantic and elegant, yet never vulgarized, it conforms to the description set forth by filmmaker Luis Buñuel in the movie, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

Indeed, for Bossa Nova is nothing more than a product of Rio de Janeiro’s middle class that addresses itself to the world’s middle class. A middle class in Rio that, besides our Cariocas, took in a Bahian by the name of João Gilberto, the capixabas [people from Espirito Santo] Roberto Menescal and Nara Leão, paraibanos [people from the Northeast] such as Geraldo Vandré, João Donato from the state of Acre, and from São Paulo, Sergio Ricardo and Wanda Sá, as well as future songwriter Toquinho.

Carlos Lyra (left) with Aloysio de Oliveira (above him), Nara Leao & Vinicius (1963)

It should be noted that during my lifetime as a performer, I came across something curious: that artistic talent is completely independent of intelligence, culture, good character and mental or physical stability. I have met or heard about artists endowed with undeniable excellence, but who were devoid of one or another of the qualities or gifts mentioned above.

A composer of Bossa Nova who cherishes his art suffers a series of influences that begin with the impressionism of Ravel and Debussy, along with [the music of] Bach, Villa-Lobos, Stravinsky, Brahms and Schumann. He suffers the influence of bolero from Mexico by [the likes of] Agustín Lara, Gonzalo Curiel and Maria Grever — the same bolero that in Brazil took the form of samba-canção; of the French songwriters Charles Trenet and Henri Salvador.

In quick succession, by the influence of the five major American composers: Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and Richard Rodgers; and by the following artists, i.e., Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, Shorty Rogers, Barney Kessel, Stan Kenton and the Modern Jazz Quartet who, much as we ourselves were, are identified with West Coast Jazz.

Finally, Bossa Nova owes its existence to an effervescent cultural outbreak (not a movement, as many have wrongly stated) that took place in Brazil during the 1950s and which manifested itself on the stage with the Arena Theater of São Paulo, the Brazilian Comedy Theater [or “TBC”], Teatro dos Quatro and Teatro Oficina. In the visual arts with Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Hélio Oiticica and Wesley Duke Lee, among others. In architecture with Oscar Niemeyer, Lúcio Costa and Burle Marx.

In the automotive industry and in the sports world with Pelé and Garrincha at the Soccer World Cup; with Éder Jofre in boxing, Maria Esther Bueno in tennis, Ademar Ferreira da Silva in the triple jump, and with the Miss Universe Beauty Pageant where Iêda Maria Vargas was crowned.

Bossa Nova was, nothing more, nothing less, than the musical background to it all.

Roberto Menescal (left) & Carlos Lyra at Vivo Rio, February 2016

As to the name “Bossa Nova,” that came about during a presentation we gave, in 1958, at the University Hebrew Group in Flamengo: myself, Silvinha Telles, Menescal, Ronaldo Bôscoli and Nara. There was a sign on the club’s door with our names on it, followed by the words “… and the Bossa Nova.” I asked the producer and director of the social club what that meant. His response was: “That’s the name I invented for you.” So we adopted it. We learned later that this creative little Jew had moved to Israel.

After that, we never heard from him again.

CARLOS LYRA — Guest Contributor

SUNDAY, JANUARY 31, 2016

(English translation by Josmar Lopes, and printed with the gracious permission of Carlos Lyra and Magda Botafogo)

Link to the original entry on Carlos Lyra’s blog, ALÉM DA BOSSA NOVA: http://carlos-lyra.blogspot.com/2016/01/o-que-e-bossa-nova.html

‘Sadness Has No End’ — Part Two: ‘Muse of Bossa Nova’

Ademilde Fonseca, Orson Welles & Elizete Cardoso (Funarte)

The cover of the most recently published biography of Orson Welles (titled Volume Two: Hello Americans by British actor-author Simon Callow) boasts a remarkable black-and-white photograph of the late, great media personality at the height of his fame and notoriety.

Sporting an immaculately tailored white-linen suit, he is seen buttoned to the neck in traditional 1940s man-about-town fashion. In one hand, he carries a drink — most probably cachaça, which Welles developed a deliberate taste for while carousing around the foothills of Rio de Janeiro; in the other, a lighted cigar. His face is bloated, the eyes mere slits, the cheeks puffy and swollen (in Callow’s estimation, he resembles “a fat, mischievous, rather ugly youth”). He looks astonishingly like one of his own later film creations, the corrupt police inspector Hank Quinlan, from his self-directed 1958 flick Touch of Evil — the one where lantern-jawed lead Charlton Heston plays a Mexican, and co-star Janet Leigh his platinum-blonde wife.

There is no date attached to it, but we can reasonably assume that, since the book covers the incidents in his life from the years 1941 through 1947, the portrait must have been taken sometime during Welles’ ill-fated Brazilian campaign of February 1942.

What is most pertinent for us here are the two native starlets pictured with him, both made up to look like baianas and holding on to the American celebrity’s arms for dear life: on his right is singer-comedienne Ademilde Fonseca; and on his left a young and cheery Elizete Cardoso (her first name is sometimes written as “Elizeth,” with various combinations in between). Already a well-known voice on radio and in the glitzy dance palaces of the storied big-band era in Brazil, the powerhouse carioca cantora (“Rio-born singer”) epitomized an older, more impassioned way of singing that would, by the very sound of things, make her an unlikely choice for international pop-music stardom in the youth-oriented culture of the 1960s.

One could be faulted, therefore, for having made such an erroneous connection. For all we know, Orson might well have been handing off the as-yet-to-be-invented title of the future “Muse of Bossa Nova” to Elizete herself. (And why not? Before being branded persona non grata in Hollywood, our honorary Brazilian citizen Welles had the run of the show in Rio and, for a brief period, an entire movie studio as well — “the best electric train set a boy ever had,” he was once quoted as saying.)

“A Musa” Nara (cartacapital.com.br)

How wrong we were to have thought this. Historically speaking, the honor of “Muse of Bossa Nova” belonged to that of a green-eyed belle named Nara Leão, born in the same year as — and a few weeks short of — Welles’ momentous trip to her home country. And who, during the latter part of the fifties and into the early sixties, had welcomed the burgeoning bossa nova community of artists into her parent’s Copacabana apartment, which went on to become a haven for many of the movement’s key players.

Sadly for her fans, A Musa Nara was to pass on into pop legend much too early in life, in June 1989 (the cause of death was attributed to an inoperable brain tumor). Less than a year later, Elizete would likewise follow suit. Most modern-day moviegoers, Brazilian or otherwise, probably have no idea who either performer was; but if they had ever caught Marcel Camus’ 1959 co-production of Black Orpheus during its prime they would undoubtedly have heard Cardoso loud and clear on the soundtrack.

She provided the vocals for novice movie-actress Marpessa Dawn (who did not speak a word of Portuguese, but just happened to have been married to the film’s director) as Eurídice, with another relative newcomer, the singer Agostinho dos Santos, doing the same for Brazilian soccer player Breno Mello as the titular hero. Disappointingly, both her and Agostinho’s film labors went uncredited.

Her biggest claim to fame, such as it was, occurred some time later — around the year 1974, to be precise — with the release of the touching “Carta ao Tom” (“Letter to Tom”), a tender-enough ode penned by O Poetinha (“The Little Poet”), Vinicius de Moraes, with one of his later collaborators, performer-guitarist Toquinho (Antonio Pecci Filho). An evocative dedication — particularly in the superb rendition spotlighting the harmonious sister act, Quarteto Em Cy (The Girls From Bahia) — to Vinicius’ long-running relationship with composer-songwriter Antonio Carlos “Tom” Jobim, it recalled, most nostalgically, the mutual joy they each shared at Jobim’s old Ipanema hangout on Nascimento Silva Street, where his pedagogical skills were put to the test in teaching the veteran Elizete the words to the first of the pair’s many breakthrough bossa-nova hits:

Rua Nascimento Silva 107
Você ensinando pra Elizete
As canções de canção do amor demais
Lembra que tempo feliz
Ai, que saudade…
Ipanema era só felicidade

Nascimento Silva Street, No. 107,
You, teaching to Elizete
The songs to the song of excessive love
Remember those happy times?
Ah, what memories…
Ipanema was happiness incarnate

Elizete Cardoso (mbarimusica.blogspot.com)

For a fleeting instant, it looked, for all the world, as if The Little Poet had transformed an over-the-hill Brazilian pop diva into that proverbial “Muse” her followers had been hoping for all along. Of course, it was all wishful thinking on their part. What was to Elizete’s benefit, it turned out, was the long-delayed credit given her for having recorded Canção do Amor Demais, or “Song of Excessive Love,” in early 1958. The album featured thirteen lucky tracks of seminal Jobim-Moraes compositions, including the now classic “Chega de Saudade” (“No More Blues”).

Accompanying her on this and on one other number, “Outra vez” (“Once Again”), and injecting a syncopated breath of fresh air into the proceedings, was the most pugnacious fussbudget of a performer ever to grace a stage platform (and walk off of one, too): the twenty-six-year-old, Bahian-born João Gilberto do Prado Pereira de Oliveira, known in the music business as João Gilberto, from the sleepy provincial town of Juazeiro.

Right off the bat, the peeves and peculiarities that the perpetually off-putting Joãozinho (“Little Johnny”) became famous for later on were on ample display in this, his maiden studio outing with the more practiced Elizete, who continuously balked at his bold entreaties to pare down her pear-shaped tones while staying behind that radical guitar beat of his.

No More Blues? Man, You Got That Wrong!

Elizete Cardoso’s flagrant disregard for his unsolicited advice did not deter Joãozinho from putting his own spin to “Chega de Saudade,” laid down by him as a 78-rpm single in July of that year and subsequently issued on Odeon Records — with the unseen hand of its arranger, O Mestre Tom Jobim, having moved heaven and earth to accommodate the incredibly demanding singer-guitarist. What normally would have been a straightforward, two-to-three-hour recording session dragged on interminably beyond all practical limitations.

João Gilberto (israbox.com)

In spite of his well-earned reputation as an obsessive, nitpicking perfectionist, the fastidious and reclusive Joãozinho took full charge of the infant bossa-nova idiom from the start with his unrivaled ability to pull the vocal line every which way. “Bossa nova overwhelmed us,” offered fellow Bahian and devout apologist, Caetano Veloso, by way of elaboration. “What João Gilberto proposed was a deeply penetrating and highly personal interpretation of the spirit of samba.”

Picking up on this thread, writer Jeff Kaliss, in “Bossa Nova: Music of Modern Love,” a contemplative piece he submitted for the architectural-design magazine CA-Modern, made the argument that Joãozinho had sought “an inner vision” for himself, “a percussive, plangent style that would become the envy of all guitarists… this style bore the swing of samba, but made samba’s elements sound sweetly from a single instrument, with ‘altered’ chords that evoked both African folk music and the sophistication of [American] jazz.” Added columnist and music critic Daniella Thompson, the voice went “in one direction, the beat in another.”

Jobim expressed it best, however, when he reached the self-evident conclusion that “It was the rhythm, the swing. It was João Gilberto with his guitar, the beat of bossa nova.” There are some noteworthy examples of his quirky style in existence. In a comparison of two versions of “Chega de Saudade,” recorded more than forty years apart — the first, from his aforementioned 1958 single, which surrounds him with a swirl of syrupy strings; the second, from a Grammy-winning 2000 release João, Voz e Violão (“John, Voice and Guitar”), on an imported Verve CD and produced by Caetano himself — the voice has noticeably aged, but, like the finest wines, it has settled into a mellow companion-piece to his vintage guitar-work.

Still recognizable despite the passage of time, Joãozinho has lost much of his former sweetness and bloom. Miraculously, what he’s managed to preserve is that singularly individual timbre and precise enunciation of the Portuguese text — his charming Northeastern accent still mercifully intact — along with perfect pitch and a complete oneness with the composer’s musical ideas, all of them absolute prerequisites for putting the song’s tongue-twisting imagery across to succeeding generations of listeners.

This is what set an artist of João Gilberto’s exalted caliber apart from the majority of his contemporaries: that offbeat, off-kilter vocal style All Music Guide contributor Terri Hinte reverently referred to as his “fine muttering form” — an intense, vibrato-less delivery that made him sound as if he were intimately engaged in a one-sided conversation “with somebody in his breast pocket.” That’s the most convincing summation of his art as any I’ve ever read.

Caetano Veloso (vilanatal.com)

It’s no small wonder Elizete lost patience with the man, as did so many others that came after her. As for the tune that thrust Joãozinho into the probing eye of the microscope, it was just the beginning of a mass awakening, what Caetano Veloso ultimately attributed to Verdade Tropical (“Tropical Truth”): a lyrical introduction to the potentially revolutionary force that popular music was to exert on South America’s largest song market; and during a transitional period the Dylanesque singer-songwriter had devoted a good deal of thought to in his writing of the tell-all book of the same name, aptly subtitled A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil:

“I saw in ‘Chega de Saudade’ the manifesto and the masterpiece of a movement: the mother ship. A samba with some traces of choro, immensely rich in melodic motifs, with a flavor so Brazilian it could be a recording…from the thirties, ‘Chega de Saudade’ managed to be a modern song while having enough harmonic and rhythmic daring to attract any bop or cool-jazz musician. On the other hand, the title and lyrics suggested a rejection/reinvention of saudade, that word so prevalent in and emblematic of our experience and our language. A lush composition full of uncommon commonplaces… this song was a generous example of everything Tom, João, Vinicius, and others wanted to offer, containing all the elements that were elsewhere scattered. It was the prime mover of bossa nova, the map, the itinerary, the constitution.”

On that basis, and on the magic he was able to capture on the stage and recreate in the recording studio, João Gilberto was promoted forthwith into the swelling ranks of self-appointed music ambassadors, as the third and final ingredient in the formula that popularized bossa nova in their native land — and to a waiting world.

Their defining moment came, interestingly enough, not in Rio de Janeiro but during a nondescript Manhattan recital — the brainchild of record owner and producer Sidney Frey — held in the island borough’s famed Carnegie Hall auditorium. Hosted by jazz critic and political activist Leonard Feather and billed as an evening of “New Brazilian Jazz,” it took the unsuspecting nation by storm on a wet and subfreezing late-November night in 1962.

Bossa Nova at Carnegie Hall (kartoshka167.blogspot.com)

Not all the next day’s reviews were kind to them, however; in fact, most were positively frigid, much like the wintry weather itself. That did not impede the performers from warming up to the expectant crowd that had gathered there to hear real music-history in the making. Among the legendary participants were the then-unknown trio of João, Jobim, and Bonfá — all three of who stayed on in the city to eventually record, with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz, the groundbreaking Jazz Samba Encore! and Getz/Gilberto albums for Verve — in addition to Agostinho dos Santos, Oscar Castro-Neves, Sérgio Mendes, Milton Banana, Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal, and Chico Feitosa.

Prominent by his absence was our friendly neighborhood songwriter, the reluctant Little Poet and vice-consul Vinicius de Moraes. Invited to attend but still miffed at the U.S. for its handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis of the previous October, the avowed Communist sympathizer made the startlingly controversial move to sit the event out. For a ranking member of Brazil’s diplomatic corps, he was anything but that when it came to his private impulses and pet idiosyncrasies. Once again, politics and poor personal choices — however explosive the combination may have seemed — easily trumped fortune and recognition in the jazz-pop field for the increasingly independent-minded, “left-wing hedonist.”

Knowing the poet as we do, he could not have cared a whit for what others had to say about his far-flung ideals. The likelihood, then, that his liberated lifestyle had interfered with his becoming a household name in America (in the slightly more tolerable Jobim mold, perhaps) is unusually high. Besides, the time for him to have profited from his previous stay there had long since outlived its usefulness.

In 1969, after years of putting up with his errant ways, Vinicius was ignominiously dropped from the Brazilian Foreign Service. Paradoxically, after the surprise success of the historic Carnegie Hall concert — and after the musical genre was well on its way to conquering audiences in the United States and abroad — the 1964 military takeover in Brazil put a halt to the optimism and exhilaration that had propelled bossa nova’s inexorable upward climb in the charts after nearly a decade of steady growth and expansion on its home soil.

Protest songs operating under the guise of pop-rock anthems, in addition to the ubiquitous Música Popular Brasileira and the even shorter-lived Tropicália movements, were becoming all the rage vide the eyebrow-raising endeavors of the young and restless Edu Lobo (“Arrastão” – “A Huge Drag,” introduced on national television by the future queen of pop, Elis Regina, with lyrics by O Poetinha himself), Jair Rodrigues (“Disparada” – “Stampede”), Chico Buarque (“A banda”), Caetano Veloso (“Alegria, alegria” and “É Proibido Proibir” – “Prohibiting is Prohibited”), Gilberto Gil (“Domingo no Parque” – “Sunday in the Park”), Geraldo Vandré (“Caminhando” – “Walking”), and a host of influential others.

Nara Leão (jazzmusicarchives.com)

Even the former “Muse” herself, Nara Leão, got into the thick of things by tossing out — at least, in theory — bossa nova’s pervasively romantic appeal in favor of themes with more relevant social content. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life singing ‘The Girl from Ipanema,’ ” she dissented, “much less sing it in English. I want to be understood, I want to be a singer of the people.”

It was just as well, since many of the stellar attractions previously associated with the seductive easy-listening format had, by then, left sunshine-happy Rio for points due north and west — in short, a bit further north (as in the Big Apple) and a lot farther west (as in the City of Angels) than any of them had ever dreamed of or imagined.

The resultant “brain drain” of entertainers was felt across the board in fun-loving, music-making Brazil. But unlike many seemingly insurmountable obstacles found there, the gap was soon filled by the above-named avalanche of talent, to most everyone’s favor and delight — everyone, that is, except the newly-installed ruling military body, which did not take kindly to the barely-concealed bashing it was receiving in the electronic media and elsewhere.

Calling to mind Newton’s Third Law of Motion (from which I quote: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”), the changes to the country’s musical landscape were a direct result of the disruptions caused along its political and economic frontier, which were scarcely to anyone’s favor or delight. As we soon learned, this was an exceptionally dangerous game Brazilian artists had been playing at, one that was sure to backfire on them in the days and months to come.

By that measure, saudade, an ever-present “longing” or “regret” for the good times that had come before; for idling by a sandy strip of Ipanema shoreline, with a beer in one hand and a “tall and tan and young and lovely” girl on the other; for those feelings of nostalgia that bossa nova once engendered in the trouble-free youth of the period, was manifestly all that was left once the crackdown of dissidents (the so-called “revolution within a revolution” of 1968) had begun, with a rebellious Caetano, Gil & Company placed at the head of the troublesome class.

Brazil, that exotic Amazon outpost overflowing with musical milk and honey, was still a long way off from steering a middle course between the rigid, hard-line of repression (which, regretfully, only got worse over time) and a more flexible form of self-governance. Φ

(End of Part Two)

Copyright © 2012 by Josmar F. Lopes