Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World

by Castro, Ruy

  Led by two extremely articulate young singer-songwriters, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, the late-sixties pop movement known as tropicalismo (or Tropicália) seemed at first glance to fly in the face of everything bossa nova was about. Voraciously eclectic, the tropicalistas threw rural accordion music, outdated torch songs, jingles, Stockhausen, and the howl of machinery into their mix of sounds, often combining them to jarring effect in a single song. Most provocative of all, they even took up the electric guitars of ye-ye-ye, despised as imperialist noise by their artistic peers. Tropicália was, in short, an affront to the decorum bossa nova had made an art of, and it was booed off more than one stage by audiences who took it upon themselves to defend bossa nova’s lingering standards of good taste.

  And yet, in interview after interview, Veloso and Gil insisted they had come not to bury bossa nova but to carry on its modernizing work. Although they regularly cited the Beatles as an influence, they invoked more often the name of João Gilberto, in whose voice and guitar they still heard the sounds of an undiscovered country. For them, though, that country was no longer the Brazil of a space-age, First World future. It was a Brazil that looked its contradictions squarely in the face—its sophistication and its barbarity, its First World dreams and its Third World lives—and made something beautifully, arrestingly true out of them. What the tropicalistas were doing, as they saw it, was simply taking the quiet clash of realities in Gilberto’s hypermodern roots music and amplifying it. They were taking the suave humor in the Gilberto/Jobim hit “Desafinado” (Off-Key)—a winking apology for those whose sense of harmony diverges from the norm—and turning it into a celebration of cultural dissonance in all its forms. Or as Veloso once put it, in a song critical of those who would reduce bossa nova to a set of formal rules: “The truth is that we learned from João forever to be out of tune.”

  As it happens, the tropicalistas’ reinvention of bossa nova is one chapter of the story that you won’t find in this book. But just knowing something of its terms may add to the pleasure of reading what is rightly Bossa Nova’s heart, soul, and narrative backbone: the unlikely rise of João Gilberto from hopeless dreamer to his current stature as one of the great geniuses of pop-song history. Castro deftly mythologizes the five-year-long via crucis of nervous breakdowns and quasi-homelessness that led to Gilberto’s discovery of the sacred beat, shaping it into a saga that thrills all on its own. But its thrills are that much deeper if you picture Gilberto pursuing not just a beat, or a style, but a more perfect feel for the shape of an imperfect modernity.

  That, after all, is something American listeners can surely relate to. And that, finally, is what this book teaches us: not just who really invented bossa nova, but why we need to start hearing it as more than just a mood. Lord knows we’re ready to. Rock’s claim on the future of popular music expired some time ago, and amid the scramble of new, competing claims, there are inevitably some that look to the immediate pre-rock past for inspiration. Thus it is that lounge lovers, jazz revanchists, and other kindred camps, God bless them all, have begun the long-overdue rethinking of bossa nova’s banishment to the background. But the process remains far from complete. For while there’s nothing wrong with loving bossa nova for its leopard-print retro charms or as a souvenir from jazz’s last real brush with mass appeal, we’ll never really know what bossa nova can offer us until we find out what it offered Brazilians. And that, perhaps, is nothing more or less than what the last century’s greatest art usually offered: the bumpy contradictions of modern life made plain and, if we’re lucky, beautiful.

  Julian Dibbell

  March 2000

  Prologue

  Juazeiro, 1948

  The loudspeaker that hung from one of the posts on Rua do Apolo in Juazeiro, Bahia, played “Naná,” sung by Orlando Silva, at least three times a day. The record sleeve said 1948, and “Naná,” a slow foxtrot by Custódio Mesquita and Geysa Bôscoli, was an old hit from 1940. But Mr. Emicles, the owner of the sound system, wasn’t particularly concerned about playing the latest music sensations. He played the records he liked to listen to through his speakers, and only now and again would he make concessions to the enduring patience of his audience—the entire population of Juazeiro—and go to Salvador to buy new records. Fortunately, Mr. Emicles’s taste in music was as wide and varied as a rainbow. Among the featured attractions in his repertoire were “Song of India” by Tommy Dorsey; “Caravan” by Duke Ellington; “Siboney” by Gregorio Barrios; “Musica proibita” (Forbidden Music) by Carlo Buti; “Ménilmontant” by Charles Trenet; “Cambalache” by Francisco Canaro; and “Dream Lover” by Jeanette McDonald. No radio station in Juazeiro—if Juazeiro had had a radio station—could have done better.

  And, of course, Mr. Emicles’s program also included a lot of Brazilian music: “Bolinha de papel” (Little Paper Ball) by Anjos do Inferno (Hell’s Angels); “Onde o céu azul é mais azul” (Where the Blue Sky Is Bluest) by Francisco Alves; “Boogie-woogie na favela” (Boogie-Woogie in the Slums) by Cyro Monteiro; “Ave-Maria no morro” (Ave Maria on the Hill) by Trio de Ouro (Gold Trio); “A primeira vez” (The First Time) by Orlando Silva; “Adeus, batucada” (Goodbye, Batucada) by Carmen Miranda, and “O samba da minha terra” (Samba of My Land) by Dorival Caymmi. Except for brief intervals for the transmission of mass, and commercial announcements, Mr. Emicles’s squeaky sound system filled the air in Juazeiro all day long with music of all genres, from all eras, which was torture for some—especially at night, when Mr. Emicles booked a local band to play live.

  So long as the town plant provided electricity, there was music in the air. The plans for Paulo Afonso’s hydroelectric plant were still on the drawing board, and when the lights flickered two or three times around eleven o’clock at night, it was a warning that within ten minutes, the electricity would be cut off and social life in Juazeiro would have to be postponed until the next day. The speakers were silenced, the already dim street lights would go out, and families would go home to bed. From that point on, the soundtrack was provided by the late-nighters with their guitars. They wandered the streets, serenading and making themselves targets for the liquid rewards of chamberpot contents, thrown out of windows onto their heads.

  Obviously, this law of silence did not apply during Carnival or the roda of São Gonçalo, a type of Candomblé ritual, during which the city danced all night to the sounds emanating from the speakers. Does that mean then that Juazeiro was like New Orleans? Well, not quite.

  In 1948, Juazeiro was a town of ten thousand, among which was a boy of seventeen whom everybody called Joãozinho da Patu. Jorge Amado waxed lyrical in his description of Juazeiro in his novel Seara Vermelha (The Golden Harvest), but real life there was depressing. Very few of the streets were paved, and all of the homes had tiled floors which the townspeople had to pour water over every other day, to refresh the body and soul. The heat was Dante-esque, and wasn’t even alleviated by the whirlwinds that swept through Juazeiro. It was worse when it was windy, because then you literally ate dust. The millions of liters of water in the São Francisco river flowing right on the town’s doorstep did not prevent it from becoming a sand pit, in which even the cacti perspired in retaliation. The São Francisco was cruel. It would burst its banks without warning, even if it hadn’t rained, and among other reprobate qualities (piranhas, for example), it would flood only the poor areas—being careful to spare the Praça da Matriz, one of the few tree-lined areas of Juazeiro, where the comparatively wealthy preferred to live.

  The square obviously owed its name to the parish church of Our Lady of the Grottos, which, according to the memories of even those citizens who were then already old-timers in Juazeiro, had been under repair as long as people could remember. The boys of the town, Joãozinho’s friends, nicknamed the church “The Unfinished Symphony,” because it was as if that skeleton of girders and scaffolding had become a part of the façade, and the works would never be finished while the old parish priest was still able to wheedle money from the co
ngregation.

  One of the benefactors of the church construction project was Mr. Juveniano de Oliveira, Joãozinho’s father. As Catholic as they come, he would even have made a donation toward an effort to remove the dandruff from the parish priest’s cassock. Mr. Juveniano attributed to divine intervention the fact that, despite having only a primary school education, he had become one of the wealthiest businessmen in Juazeiro. But his business acumen also helped. He began with a fabric store, expanded into the grain industry, became the owner of several barges on the São Francisco river, and, in partnership with his brother Walter, bought two or three farms and even owned an islet on the river. As if that weren’t enough, his company, Oliveira & Brother, held the representation rights of Anglo-American Petroleum for the entire region of São Francisco. The only thing left to do to crown his career was to become a Rotarian. With all this activity, Mr. Juveniano still found time to play amateur cavaquinho and saxophone, and to be the official moving spirit of the century-old 22nd-of-March Band in Barro Vermelho, in the neighboring district of Curaça.

  Mr. Juveniano lived in Praça da Matriz, in a large one-story house that was always freshly painted, and filled with new children and antique furniture. He could be seen daily on his way to work, lean, fair-skinned, loose-limbed, and dapper, in his shirts with starched collars, the cuffs fastened with wrist-studs. An unfair rumor circulated about him, that he used high-falutin words to talk about mundane matters. One of the stories was that, before owning a barge service and therefore being able to cross the São Francisco for free, at whatever time he chose, he would approach the ferryman and ask, “My highly esteemed ferryman, how much will you charge to take me from this pole to that hemisphere?”—referring to Petrolina, which, despite being located in the state of Pernambuco, was merely on the other side of the river.

  His pseudo-erudite patois did not disguise the fact that Mr. Juveniano had no more than an elementary school education, but the truth was that he was a wealthy man in Juazeiro. What those who envied him couldn’t understand was how, despite being somewhat countrified, he was able to get married for the second time (he was a widower from his first marriage) to the beautiful and refined Dona Patu of Salvador. Their amazement derived from the fact that she was beautiful and refined, and her relatives, from the influential Viana family, included doctors, politicians, and directors of chic clubs in the capital, like the Bahia Tennis Club and the Yacht Club. Dona Patu was a woman who commanded respect: austere and haughty, she would cross the street with a short, hurried step, greeting people, but without stopping to engage in conversation. Families would go to visit her, taking advantage of the opportunity to admire her embroidery. Occasionally, when she served lunch at her home, she would offer the guests lavender water, and some of them would embarrass themselves by drinking it.

  It is hardly surprising that Mr. Juveniano should have directed all his efforts toward the education of his children, of which he had many. He already had Walter, from his first marriage, and with Dona Patu there came in rapid succession Dadainha, Vavá, Joãozinho, Dedé, Vivinha, and the baby of the family, Jovininho. Educating his many children was a challenging and expensive task. In Juazeiro in the 1940s, formal education ended at the elementary level, and for middle school on up, boys had to go to Salvador, or to Aracaju, which was closer. But Mr. Juveniano was successful in his endeavor, because by one means or another, he managed to ensure that each of his children received his or her high school diploma. That is, except for one, whom everybody said was the most intelligent: Joãozinho, of course.

  From the time that he wore short pants, when he rode his bicycle through the Far West-style streets of Juazeiro, Joãozinho had already decided to follow a more challenging path: he would become João Gilberto.

  His mother could not be blamed for considering him scatterbrained, because he would continually lose his schoolbooks, notebooks, and pens. One day, Joãozinho left home wearing a new pair of shoes and Dona Patu admonished him, half-seriously and half-joking, not to lose them. The street kids were playing a game of soccer in the square, and invited him to join in. Joãozinho took off his shoes to play, but, remembering what his mother had told him, buried them in the sand so as not to lose them. When the game was over, he went to look for them and couldn’t remember where he had buried them. He returned home barefoot and got the scolding of his life.

  In 1942, when he was eleven years old, his father sent him to the Padre Antônio Vieira boarding school in Aracaju. Joãozinho was not an exceptional student: Latin and geometry were decidedly beyond him. He was much more interested in cheering for a local soccer team, Silvestre, and in forming vocal ensembles with his friends. At fourteen years of age, during one of his vacations in Juazeiro, a godfather who loved the nightlife gave him a guitar. It was just what he needed.

  He learned to play the instrument using the Turuna Elementary Method common to those wandering folk, printed on cheap paper, because it was the first method of instruction he was able to lay his hands on. The Turuna did not turn him into Andrés Segovia, but it taught him enough chords to allow him to accompany himself and to try to harmonize with the breaking voices of his friends. Joãozinho’s voice was also changing, and much to his despair, the trombone-like timbre which he had begun to acquire sometimes wavered to that of a flute, without warning. But at fifteen, when he returned to Juazeiro—without the least intention of continuing his formal studies—his voice had already settled into that rich and well-rounded tenor with which he would toast the town with songs beneath the tamarind tree.

  One of the rare trees in Juazeiro was a giant tamarind in Praça da Matriz. Tamarinds like dry soil, but that one must have loved it, because it grew to the point of being taller than any house in town. Its canopy gave a shade under which many generations placed chairs to sit and chat. When João Gilberto was a teenager, the tamarind tree was as important to life in Juazeiro as the town’s two social clubs, the 28 de Setembro (28th of September) and the Sociedade Apolo Juazeirense (Juazeiro Apollo Society). Meetings were arranged beneath its shade, and at night, the most flirtatious couples bickered over space by its trunk. Deals were closed there, the idle discussed politics, and kids gathered to play the guitar.

  Joãozinho, Waltinho, Pedrito, and Alberto were part of one of those guitar groups. The four of them sang and played, but the solos were often sung by Waltinho, whom many agreed had the best voice in the group. (Later, Pedrito and Alberto would go on to other things, but Waltinho became the bossa nova composer and vocalist Walter Santos, who wrote “Amanhã” [Tomorrow].) Joãozinho was the leader and arranger of the group.

  Underneath the tamarind tree, they rehearsed an entire repertoire in preparation for the day on which they might sing into the microphone of Mr. Emicles’ sound system. Their hits were “Marina,” which Dorival Caymmi had just released, and the Spanish “Malagueña Salerosa” (Sexy Woman from Malaga). But in fact, they sang everything they heard played through the speakers. If it had been left up to the four, all of whom were very shy, they never would have approached Mr. Emicles and the world would have been none the wiser for what it had missed. But a cousin of Joãozinho’s, Dewilson, convinced the owner of the sound system to allow them to perform now and again. They sang, pleased thousands, and became mini-celebrities in the region. They weren’t exactly the Mills Brothers, but in 1947 the nightlife in Juazeiro hadn’t quite made the Top Ten Most Exciting list, so even a small live performance by young local musicians was always a big deal.

  The town had one movie theater, the Apollo, whose films had already been gathering dust for at least ten years by the time they made it there—and it was because of this that Joãozinho was able to see all the old Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals released by RKO, which had long since left the larger cities. (He was so taken with Fred Astaire that he even talked about learning how to tap dance.) After the movie, there was the mandatory stroll down Rua do Apolo, with the speaker presiding over all, and at eleven, the plant gave the signal to turn in for
the night. For the boys, an alternative to serenading was the red light area in Rua da Boa Esperança. (During Carnival, the prostitutes would form a group and parade through the town, wearing Technicolor costumes and painted lips. Theirs was considered the prettiest group.) But there is no evidence that, even at eighteen, Joãozinho ever frequented Rua da Boa Esperança.

  Life finally acquired a little more meaning on the weekends, with the club dances. The 28 de Setembro featured an orchestra conducted by the saxophonist Babauzinho, whom Joãozinho much admired. During Carnival, Babauzinho would host two dances daily: one at night for the adults, and one in the afternoon for the kids, which Joãozinho always attended. He didn’t go for fun—to be honest, he didn’t care much for Carnival—but to accompany his girlfriends Merita, Belinha, and Ieda, and occasionally, to squirt ether in their armpits. But what he really liked to do was to listen to Babauzinho.

  After months of straining their vocal chords over Mr. Emicles’s sound system, Joãozinho and his friends were given the chance to perform at a dance at the 28 de Setembro—fortunately, not during Carnival. Just as happens in the movies, Babauzinho’s orchestra could not play for some reason, and Joãozinho, Waltinho, Pedrito, and Alberto were invited to take their place. It would be their first paid performance, and they had given the arrangement of “Malagueña,” with which they would open the show, special treatment. It promised to be a big night for them and—they hoped—for the audience.

  And it was, but not quite as they had expected. As soon as they played the first chords of “Malagueña,” a fight broke out in the dance hall between a well-known doctor in the town, Dr. Lauro, and the husband of one of the society ladies. Other revelers joined the brawl, and bottles and chairs flew through the air. Joãozinho, Waltinho, Pedrito, and Alberto continued to sing at the top of their lungs in the middle of the chaos, in an attempt to convey the lyricism of “Malagueña.” Joãozinho’s friend Merita still remembers today how he insisted on fulfilling his obligations, singing in the middle of the tumult. But when a bottle narrowly missed hitting them, he and his friends decided it would be wise to leave. (Talk about traumatic!) The dance ended there, but the following day, Joãozinho insisted on, and received, remuneration for their work.