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

by Castro, Ruy

  He learned the song and recorded the 78 r.p.m. (with “Tenderly” on the other side), producing that combination of accordion and clarinet that he had heard on Ernie Felice’s records. The end result was exceptional, not because it was a nineteen-year-old Brazilian musician, but because Ernie Felice himself could not have done any better. What happened to the record from there? Nothing. His friends, which included João Gilberto, Johnny Alf, Badeco, and a few other lucky people heard it. They were amazed, but their opinion was not shared by the masses.

  In 1954, Paulo Serrano dragged Donato into the studio once again, this time to record his trio, preferably a piece of Brazilian music. Donato swapped his accordion for the piano and on one side played “Se acaso você chegasse” (If by Chance You Arrive), by Lupicínio Rodrigues, with an authoritarian air that must have frightened more than one professional pianist. Taking advantage of Paulo Serrano’s momentary distraction, on the flip side he recorded a song entitled “Long Ago and Far Away” by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin. Once again, the masses weren’t particularly moved. In 1956, Odeon allowed him to record an entire ten-inch album, “Chá dançante” (Tea-Time Dancing Party), produced by Jobim. But going by the record’s content (“Farinhada” [Manioc Flour Manufacturing], “Comigo é assim” [It’s Like That with Me] and “Peguei um ita no norte” [I Boarded a Ship in the North]), the tea must have been made of night-shade and the dance had to have been a forró. Donato must have concluded then and there that those records were a waste of time, because from that point on until the end of the decade, he only went into studios for the sole purpose of giving João Gilberto a fright.

  That is, except for one occasion, and that happened when he recorded two tracks (this time playing the trombone) on the album Dance conosco (Dance with Us), released by Copacabana in 1958. It was a record with a dreadful cover and title that had nothing to do with the great music recorded on it. The tracks were a fantastic mambo, modestly entitled “Mambinho” (Little Mambo), and an instrumental version of his and João Gilberto’s samba, “Minha saudade” (My Saudade). His arrangements were so surprising that many people began to ask how many cards Donato had up his sleeves, should he decide to keep them rolled up.

  It wasn’t as if he didn’t work hard, when he did work, that is. But at the same time he was developing as an instrumentalist and arranger, he was also living up to his reputation as a crazy and irresponsible person, and all for the same old reasons: absences, tardiness, and an excess of additives. Bebop musicians also had the same image, but for some unknown reason it was more noticeable in the West Coast jazz players. The same thing happened with Donato, who probably wasn’t any crazier than the others, like the great trombonist Ed Maciel, or João Gilberto himself. Donato’s dubious fame reached its peak when he worked with Copinha’s orchestra at the Copacabana Palace. His tardiness was so frequent that, had the conductor docked his pay for each time he showed up late, Donato would have been in the red by the end of the month. So, instead of firing him (which any insensitive conductor would have done with any normal musician), Copinha found the perfect solution: for every two occasions on which Donato was late, only one was deducted from his salary. His colleagues adored him, because his fines were thrown into a collection box and then evenly distributed among the other musicians. Copinha wouldn’t make do without his accordion, even if only on rare and happy occasions.

  Donato himself decided to give up the accordion to concentrate on piano, and merely played the trombone as a hobby. The story goes that he could no longer stand to drag his accordion around the nightclub circuit because this obliged him to avoid having a last drink, for fear of leaving it someplace. On one of those nights, he left the accordion in an unlocked car and it was stolen. He felt no compulsion to buy another and, as there was a piano in every nightclub he worked in, the dilemma was solved.

  Donato might also have recounted that he stopped playing the accordion because he had exhausted the instrument’s possibilities, while the piano seemed to be an endless source of harmonic possibilities. And he wanted to be able to explore them, if he had somewhere to do so. He was becoming a musician whose head was somewhere up on the jazz map, but whose feet were firmly planted in the Caribbean, and whose hands had no preference for the music from any particular Brazilian region, contrary to the urban Rio thing his colleagues were into. This, as well as his reputation for being unreliable, began to shrink the market in which he was able to work to the size of a thimble. In 1959, no one wanted to hire him, and he even started finding it hard to be able to play for free at four in the morning.

  His former colleague in Os Namorados, the guitarist Nanai, was working in Mexico and invited him to meet him in California for a two-week vacation. He went, and ended up staying for the next thirteen years.

  10

  “Desafinado” (Off-Key)

  The proofreader was off-key: Newton Mendonça becomes “Milton”

  Charlton Heston descending Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments under his arm—that was more or less the feeling that those who listened to João Gilberto sing “Chega de saudade” (No More Blues) for the first time got. Even those who already thought Jobim was modern, after the release of “Foi a noite” (It Was the Night) and “Se todos fossem iguais a você” (Someone to Light up My Life) got a shock. In less than two minutes, these two great songs became as outdated as “Ninguém me ama” (Nobody Loves Me)—relics of the noir romanticism of older men, who had lovers, not girlfriends, and whose souls were as stale and smoke-filled as the nightclubs in which they drowned their cuckolded sorrows. “Chega de saudade,” as was later eloquently described by conductor Rogério Duprat, was a “a kick up the backside to the bolero era.” João Gilberto’s new way of singing and playing guitar cast a ray of sunshine over everything, much more so than Dick Farney’s “Copacabana,” which had been released twelve years before. (Only twelve years, yet it felt like it had been when pterodactyls were still flying around.)

  “Chega de saudade” offered, for the first time, a mirror to the narcissistic youth. The kids could see themselves in that music, as clearly as in the waters at Ipanema, which were much clearer than those at Copacabana. It was unknown at the time, but later it would be discovered that no other Brazilian record would awaken the desire in so many young people to sing, compose, or play an instrument, specifically, the guitar. And at the same time, it also put an end to the infernal national obsession with the accordion.

  It seems hard to believe today, but that instrument dominated all facets of daily life. And what was even worse, it wasn’t the kind of accordion played by subtle masters like Chiquinho or Sivuca, and far less that of Donato—but the countrified accordion playing of Luís Gonzaga, Zé Gonzaga, Velho Januário, Mário Zan, Dilu Melo, Adelaide Chiozzo, Lurdinha Maia, Mário Gennari Filho, and Pedro Raimundo, adding up to a festival of rancheiras and xaxados that appeared to have transformed Brazil into a permanent June hoedown. And, destroying the myth that this was a phenomenon particular to cities in the rural regions, Mário Mascarenhas was threatening to put the best Brazilian musical talents to accordion music.

  Mascarenhas was a gaucho based in Rio and virtually monopolized the manufacture of the instrument in the country. He not only manufactured accordions by the thousands at his factory in Caxias do Sul, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, but also ran a network of “academies” in most of the state capitals. In the fifties, youngsters who were in any way rebellious, those who answered back, or those who risked flunking their exams in school had to study with Mário Mascarenhas as punishment. At the end of every year, he would promote a fearsome concert of “one thousand accordions” at the Teatro Municipal, gathering together all his students, teachers, and former students from the innumerable groups he had formed. (In 1960, he boasted that he had taught twenty-five thousand accordionists.) Mascarenhas’s popularity among Rio families wasn’t shaken even when his beautiful wife, Conchita, left him in 1956, claiming that he made her dress in “lascivious outfits”—Salomé, The Queen
of Sheba, and even the Merry Widow—at their sacred retreat. It was a gas, but for society’s peace of mind, she returned home and afterward claimed that it was all a misunderstanding, although photographs of Conchita in those “lascivious outfits” appeared in the magazine Revista do Rádio and were a huge hit among her husband’s students.

  Among the one thousand young accordion players in the 1957 class at the Teatro Municipal were none other than Marcos Valle, Francis Hime, Eumir Deodato, Edu Lobo, Ugo Marotta, and Carlos Alberto Pingarilho, all aged between fourteen and seventeen—and all hating being there. Marotta later became the vibraphonist for Roberto Menescal’s band (another former student of Mário Mascarenhas) and then turned himself into a much-sought-after arranger. Pingarilho also managed to survive the accordion and composed “Samba da pergunta” (The Question’s Samba) with Marcos Vasconcellos. But at the graduation party of 1957, the musical future of those young men appeared to reside in the bellows of what American humorist Ambrose Bierce called “an instrument in harmony with the sentiments of an assassin.”

  In 1958, a common obsession united those young men: to free themselves from the accordion and take up the guitar, which, incidentally, would make them much more popular with girls. They all believed that their chances with members of the opposite sex would increase if they could only duplicate what they heard on certain records that they played until they wore out: “Dans mon Óle” (On My Island) by the Frenchman Henri Salvador (which Caetano Veloso, who was of the same generation, would record thirty years later); the sensual and sultry “Fever” by Peggy Lee (of which Norma Bengell would do a fabulous cover version on her album Ooooooh! Norma in 1959); and, by general consensus, “Cry Me a River” by Julie London (but only because of Barney Kessel’s guitar).

  All of these songs were foreign, but what choice did they have? It was what was young and modern, and in their minds no one was doing anything comparable in Brazil—until they were introduced to João Gilberto singing “Chega de saudade.” From that moment on, their lives were never the same again.

  Right before the 78 r.p.m. with “Chega de saudade” hit the radio stations—before the record had even been released—spools of tape containing the voice and guitar of João Gilberto were already making the rounds of Copacabana and Ipanema. “Making the rounds” is a figure of speech. Few people owned tape recorders in those precassette days, which restricted the tape’s audience to the friends of someone who owned a recorder. One of those tapes had been recorded by the photographer Chico Pereira, who fortunately was a man with lots of friends; another, by the singer Luís Cláudio. On almost all of them, João Gilberto sang “Bim-bom,” “Hô-ba-la-lá,” “Aos pés da cruz” (At the Foot of the Cross), “Chega de saudade,” and other songs he never recorded on disc, like “Louco” (Madman) by Henrique de Almeida and Wilson Batista, and “Barquinho de papel” (Little Paper Boat) by Carlinhos Lyra.

  Several youngsters got hold of those tapes by chance, and from that moment on, sat up all night thinking about his guitar beat. Most of them swore not to rest until they had managed to duplicate what they called “that beat.” One of them (it could have been anyone) was the accordion novice Pingarilho, who was seventeen. He heard the tape at his neighbor Luís Cláudio’s apartment in Rua Rainha Elizabeth, and pestered the singer until the latter, who was a good guitarist, taught him how to play “that beat.” In order to do this, Pingarilho all but moved into Luís Cláudio’s apartment, hoping that at any moment his friend João Gilberto might walk in the door carrying his guitar. But João Gilberto, whose radar appeared to be tuned to such things, never turned up while he was there.

  Other youngsters heard the beat for the first time at Menescal and Lyra’s academy, which was then located in Rua Cinco de Julho, ever since the condom incident. (Despite the scandal, the student body continued to be predominantly female.) “In fact, we didn’t really teach guitar,” Menescal would later remark. “We taught João Gilberto’s beat. No one came out of there trained as a soloist.” Together with the beat that Lyra and Menescal taught came the songs they used to illustrate it: the repertoires of Jobim and Vinícius, Jobim and Newton Mendonça, Tito Madi, Luiz Bonfá, Garoto, and the first songs written by Lyra, Oscar, and Chico Feitosa. (Menescal still did not attempt to compose, he said he preferred fishing.) After all, for a handful of youngsters from Rio, the asyet-unpublished and invisible João Gilberto was already a voice, or at least a guitar beat.

  It was then, around the summer of 1958, that Canção do amor demais (Song for an Excessive Love), with Elizeth, was released. Those few youngsters were the only ones to recognize that on at least two of the tracks, “Chega de saudade” and “Outra vez” (One More Time), Elizeth’s Prussian ‘r’s were backed by that revolutionary guitar. Months later, the real “Chega de saudade,” by João Gilberto, was released. They were already familiar with “that beat,” but now they had the records. They could practice at home, listening to them day and night. And the records—breakable but portable—began to circulate at the speed of light among Rio high schools and universities, from the Mallet Soares school to the Mello e Souza, from the College of Architecture, in Praia Vermelha, to the PUC (Pontificial Catholic University) in Gávea. Never had so many classes been skipped. Girls and boys threw parties and gatherings just to listen to João Gilberto. When the record was being played, nobody spoke. Every beat echoed in church-like silence, and the rhythm and harmony were meticulously dissected.

  For the first time, it became unthinkable to hold these parties without a guitar, a formerly accursed instrument. Whoever learned the new harmonies taught them to the others rather than keeping them for themselves, as was apparently commonplace among the previous generation. Learning that beat became an obsession in Rio, and to play any other way was considered square. Those who didn’t play the guitar had to make do with singing, but as long as they could manage to do a passable imitation of João Gilberto, they were guaranteed them some leeway with the girls. Those with the most finely tuned ears began to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. They began to perceive vestiges of those sounds in previous records, such as Sylvinha Telles’s album Carícia (Caress); Tito Madi’s 78 r.p.m. “Menina Moça” (Girl); and in some of the recordings by Os Cariocas. The name Jobim appeared on the “Chega de saudade” label, as well as on that of Orfeu da Conceição (Black Orpheus), and in half the songs on Carícia. The kids were taking this all in.

  Described thus, it sounds like a huge crowd of people had their ears tuned to the record. But it was only a small crowd. There was no communication between the groups, and anyone could consider him- or herself the exclusive owner of “Chega de saudade,” already a cult classic. The fans needed to organize an event that would gather them all together and prove that even though there weren’t very many of them, they weren’t alone.

  During the first half of 1958, for example, young Moysés Fuks was the editor of Tablóide UH, a daily section containing assorted information on show business, of the newspaper Última Hora. Reporter Chico Feitosa and apprentice Nara Leão worked (a figure of speech) side-by-side in the editorial room in Praça da Bandeira. Ronaldo Bôscoli, then with Manchete Esportiva magazine, became a collaborator and wrote an all-purpose column, which covered soccer, popular music, and assorted news. Being editor of the section was easy for Fuks. What was hard was also being the artistic director for the Grupo Universitário Hebraico do Brasil (University Hebrew Group of Brazil), an association of Jewish students in Flamengo. One of his tasks in the group was to organize nights of musical events for the members that did not include the compulsory “Hava Nagila,” a traditional Jewish folk song that would shortly become a huge hit for Chubby Checker. But the Hebrew Group did not have the money to hire either famous or little-known entertainers and did not yet possess sufficient talent to guarantee a varied weekly program like that of the Tatuís club, much less for free.

  But one of Fuks’s sisters was a student at Menescal and Lyra’s academy. Hearing her practice at home, he got to hear t
he gang’s songs firsthand: “Lobo bobo” (Foolish Wolf), “Sente” (Feel), “Se é tarde me perdoa” (Forgive Me if It’s Too Late), “Não faz assim” (Don’t Do That), and “Maria Ninguém” (Maria Nobody). He then heard them again, sung by Feitosa, Normando, and Nara, as well as Menescal and Lyra, at Nara’s apartment and at Aná and Lu’s house. Fuks got excited about the group and offered Bôscoli the University Hebrew Group’s auditorium for a concert. He didn’t need to ask twice. He merely suggested they include someone “who had made a name of sorts.”

  Bôscoli immediately thought of João Gilberto, but he was not available. Sylvinha Telles was chosen. Despite being a professional, having recorded an album, and even having been a TV star, she considered herself “one of the gang” and knew their repertoire by heart. Feitosa, Nara, Lyra, and Normando would sing back-up vocals, accompanied by Menescal on the guitar; Luizinho Eça on piano; Bebeto on alto sax; an American boy who lived in Rio, named Bill Horn, on French horn; Henrique Montes on double bass; and João Mário on drums. Bôscoli would emcee the show.

  Fuks drafted the program for what would be performed that night and then had it mimeographed and mailed to all the members. He promised “a bossa nova evening.” No copies of that program are in existence today, nor does Fuks remember why he used that expression to describe the content of the show, but he swears it wasn’t whispered to him by a prophet from the Old Testament. The word bossa, at least, was far from new, having been used by musicians since the days of yore to define someone who played or sang differently. Veteran singer Cyro Monteiro, for example, had a lot of bossa. In 1932, Noel Rosa used the word in a samba (“Coisas Nossas” [Our Specialties]), which went O samba, a prontidão e outras bossas / São nossas coisas, são coisas nossas (Samba, empty pockets and other bossas / Are our specialties, are our specialties). In the forties, the guitarist Garoto headed a group called Clube da Bossa (Bossa Club), which included his friend, songwriter Valzinho. Long after the expression bossa nova was already in use and practically included in dictionary listings, columnist Sérgio Porto (for a long time, a fierce adversary of the new music) casually attributed himself as its adoptive parent, alleging to have heard it from a shoeshine boy commenting on his laceless shoes—”Bossa nova, eh, doctor?”—and to have begun to use the expression himself.