Do the Bossa Nova News Blog

The putative first bossa nova song that made Gilberto, is now regarded as largely forgotten. The story of its creation, however, is more sonorous: One afternoon, João Gilberto looks at the working washerwomen on the banks of the Rio São Francisco. They balance the clothes on their heads and sway their hips in time to their steps complained. Bim-bom, bim-bim-bom, mimicking her movements Gilberto singing softly and dreamily to pluck his guitar. Bim-bom, bim-bim-bom / bim-bom, bim-bim-bom, it is called later in the song Bim Bom. 1:16 minutes, immortalized in 1959 Gilberto's debut album "Chega de saudade". It is considered the first pure bossa nova record and contains songs mostly written by Tom Jobim - already among one of Brazil's biggest, but those wills take another three years to hit the U.S., this by Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd.

The text of this song first appeared on the term bossa nova in its present meaning. Previously, he was always a negative connotation, as modern vilification of everything. With the release of Desafinado Bossa Nova becomes a lifestyle.

The album "Chega de saudade" was close to never being released in the first place. Álvaro Ramos, CEO of the largest chain of stores for vinyl records, Lojas Assumpção, which then controlled the Brazilian music market and had the power to reject anything he did'nt like, turned it of : "So this is the shit they send us from Rio?" Only a personal meeting with Gilberto, the handsome young singer with puppy dog eyes, could persuade Ramos. He takes the record into the sales program of its chain.

The youth identified themselves with the new beat. Back then everything was then the voluminous sentimental, almost operatic singing Samba Canção, punctuated by antiquated language, far from the language of their generation. Bossa Nova was like a revolution, similar to the one of rock'n roll in the U.S. In both cases, the youth defines their existence on the new music - with the difference that creates more bossa nova in the homes of the white, upper-class intellectual and not in basements or garages.

Musically, the Bossa Nova is far more complex than the rock'n roll, which was also due to its proximity to Jazz. The harmony is easy but extremely complicated. The soft, flowing character of the music is promoted by chromatic effects. The many unresolved dissonances and the constant alternation between major and minor produce the typical melancholy bossa. The rhythm avoids heavy accents, creating in the listener the feeling that the chords come too early or too late. Since the tunes also contain unusual accents, the Bossa Nova is often reviled by critics as "disgruntled music for singers." "It sounds deliberately slanted," replies Tom Jobim. "It is a criticism that only experts say. The guy next door is correct, although the tone, but has a crush on a girl, and he can tell her calmly, because love is more important than the correct pitch. Some people will always make the right tone, but they love anybody. "

In Jobim's defense, that in the texts of the Bossa Nova, as commonly believed, only the lightness of summer beach life is celebrated. But the word saudade, really untranslatable, describes a form of world-weariness, a longing for something beloved, which was lost.

Stan Getz. The son of Jewish immigrants was at the age of 16 a professional saxophonist, but he is kicked out of bands and wrestles with serious drug addictions. Mostly heroin and morphine, which he comes off later. The alcohol addiction was to accompany him to his death in 1991. Early fifties, Getz has even jail time because he tried to rob a pharmacy of narcotics. He has threatened the clerk and claim carrying a weapon. When the woman did not believe him, he flees. Getz later calls to the pharmacy to apologize. The call is traced, and the saxophonist is arrested.

The Brazilian rhythms of Charlie Byrd from Rio imported into the country give his career a completely new turn.

On 13 February Byrd and Getz meet at All-Souls Church in Washington, DC, to record the eight pieces for their album together. The recordings only take four hours, then immediately Getz returned to New York. Jazz Samba is kept for 70 weeks on the pop charts. Only the title song Desafinado sold a million copies in the following year Getz receives a Grammy for Best Jazz Performance. The gentle sound of his tenor saxophone is now nationally known as the Bossa Nova.