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

by Castro, Ruy

  The origin of the expression has never been completely clarified, and more paper and ink has been wasted on the controversy than it really deserves. The fact is that the two hundred or so people who went to the sold-out Grupo Hebraico show (at least eighty people couldn’t get in and listened to the show from outside) were greeted upon arrival with a blackboard upon which could be read, written in chalk by a secretary, “Performing today, Sylvinha Telles and a bossa nova group.” Not a Bossa Nova group, mind you, which would indicate that, at least until that night, bossa nova was merely a lowercase adjective, not the name of a musical movement. (The secretary who wrote on the blackboard was never identified.)

  The University Hebrew Group was domiciled in a large two-story house in the narrow Rua Fernando Osório in Flamengo, which would later house the Ch. N. Bialik Library. It had two mini-auditoriums, one on each floor, and the show was performed on the ground floor. There weren’t enough chairs for everyone. Half the audience stood, fighting for space with the enormous upright fans, or sat on the zebra-striped carpet. Contrary to what would happen at future bossa nova shows, no one photographed or recorded what was played that night, much to the relief of some of its extremely nervous performers. Carlinhos Lyra, for example, sang with his back practically to the audience, too scared to actually look at them. Nara Leão trembled so much that Ronaldo Bôscoli had to hold her microphone; it was the first time she had used one. But the impact on the audience made by that strange combination of samba and jazz (Johnny Alf’s “Rapaz de bem” [Nice Guy], performed by Lyra, received the most applause) was so great that no one noticed the precarious tuning of some of the singers, or the lack of confidence of some of the musicians. More insecurity than usual abounded because, except for Sylvinha and young veterans like Eça and Menescal, no one there had ever performed on stage, or for more than ten people.

  The boys also liked the expression bossa nova, which described that new guitar beat well. They felt that something would come out of all this. Up until then, it hadn’t been a musical movement. Now it was becoming one. And months later, when Tom Jobim and Newton Mendonça dubbed their music bossa nova, they thought it was the most natural thing in the world.

  Newton Mendonça and his collaborating partner, Tom Jobim, were in hysterics in Mendonça’s tiny apartment in Rua Prudente de Moraes in Ipanema in the second half of 1958. Laughing on the job was not a common occurrence between the two, who had only recently begun getting together on Monday nights to compose, when Mendonça had the evening off from the nightclub where he still worked as a pianist. Normally they were serious, almost somber, as they took turns at the piano and writing their compositions. After all, the samba-canções they produced—”Foi a noite” (It Was the Night), “Caminhos cruzados” (Crossroads), “Meditação” (Meditation)—were serious, and at least one of them, “Só saudade” (Only Saudade) was so grievous that stores should have provided a handkerchief with each record they sold. A few days before, they were so immersed in their work that when Cyrene, Mendonça’s wife, made a lighthearted comment about how dirty the piano keys were and wanted to wipe them down with a slice of bread soaked in alcohol, they all but drove her away.

  “Cyrene, what do I care about how dirty the keys are?” roared Jobim. “All I care about are chords and harmonies.”

  That night, however, the usual fiery combination of Antarctica beer and Georges Aubert cognac was being fueled by the hilarious comments by Jobim and Newton regarding the incompetence of most of the Rio evening singers whom they sometimes had to accompany. Almost none of those singers got any points for being in tune, at least to the ears of Jobim and Mendonça, but for them, the ultimate lost cause was Lélio Gonçalves, a swarthy character with a boxer’s nose and only one hand, a fact which he hid by wearing gloves. The few people who remember Lélio from his days as a crooner in the Rio nightclubs during the fifties confirm that he was indeed painfully off-key.

  The idea that reduced Jobim and Mendonça to helpless tears of laughter was cruelly inspired by singers like Lélio Gonçalves: they would compose a samba that defended those who sang off-key, but would make it so complicated and so full of key traps that it would leave the singer in complete distress. This samba would probably never be more than an inside joke, which no one would understand or be interested in recording. But it would be amusing to do, and so the two of them filled their glasses and rolled up their sleeves. Newton sat down at the piano and Tom sharpened his pencil. Notes and words flew from the piano keys to the pages of the notebook, while Cyrene served them with beer and the three of them laughed like mad. Occasionally, Jobim and Mendonça switched places and they took turns at wielding the pencil. When they got stuck, whoever was standing bent over the piano and proposed a solution. In just a few hours—except for the introduction, which Jobim would write later without Mendonça’s help, and the respective lyrics, which would be written by Ronaldo Bôscoli (uncredited)—”Desafinado” (Off-Key) was ready.

  The song came out much better than they had hoped. It wasn’t merely an inside joke, but could also be a humorous samba with certain commercial possibilities . It depended on whom the music was aimed at. “Desafinado” was just a bit of fun, both the music and the lyrics, especially the verse that made them laugh the most when Jobim suggested it: “Fotografei você na minha Rolleiflex” (I took your picture with my Rolleiflex), a reference to the classic German camera, the best available at the time. And to add just a pinch of provocation, they made reference to the “in” phrase of the moment among Ronaldo Bôscoli’s kids, and wrote: “Isto é Bossa Nova, isto é muito natural” (This is Bossa Nova, this is very natural).

  It was a song intended to be sung by someone who didn’t take himself too seriously. The first person they thought of was Ivon Curi, a funny Brazilian version of the French chansonnier Jean Sablon. Curi fit the image perfectly and used to sell lots of records. At that time, he had five hits on the charts, the kind of achievement that Jobim and Mendonça weren’t used to.

  But if that were the case, reasoned Tom, why not offer the song straight off to César de Alencar? On the air for fourteen years, his auditorium show on Rádio Nacional continued to enthuse housewives, domestic employees, and fans by the thousands on Saturday afternoons. If anyone were to call him a singer, Alencar would burst out laughing, but he recorded every year for Carnival, and any sound he produced over the microphone was a hit. Sung by him, “Desafinado” could become a gold mine. Mendonça wasn’t very enthusiastic about the idea. He preferred Ivon, who, despite being funny at times without really meaning to, was a good singer.

  Surprisingly, Jobim did in fact go to César de Alencar’s house to show him the song. The disc jockey, fanning himself with a copy of Revista do Rádio, listened to it with interest, but didn’t think it was really his “thing.” As for Ivon Curi, Jobim and Mendonça ran into him by chance at the Posto 5 nightclub a few days later. They showed him “Desafinado,” and Mendonça asked him, “Don’t you think it fits well with your style, Ivon?”

  Ivon didn’t really think so. He was courteous enough to praise the song, but privately he thought it was somewhat off-the-wall—and what on earth was all that about Rolleiflex? Even if he had loved it, he had just finished making a record and wasn’t about to jump into recording another.

  Some days later, at Jobim’s apartment, three other singers heard “Desafinado” at the same gathering. Two of them wanted to record it: Lúcio Alves and Luís Cláudio. The third actually did record it, in November of that year: João Gilberto, who shoved the others aside shouting “It’s mine!”—and got it.

  João Gilberto couldn’t believe it when he looked out of the window and saw the moving van parked outside the main entrance to Tito Madi’s building. Within a few minutes, three solidly built men entered the apartment and started packing up Tito’s furniture, and had João Gilberto not quickly ducked out of the way, they would have packed him up, too. Madi was carrying out his threat of moving out of his apartment in Avenida Atlântica, if he, João
, refused to leave. Five months after inviting him to stay, Tito decided he’d rather be alone. He had already asked him twice to leave, and João had pretended not to understand. Tito felt as if his space no longer belonged to him, because João was continually hosting friends from São Paulo, whom he had gotten to know during the release of “Chega de saudade.” Tito was afraid that, at any time, he would come into his own house and be mistaken for the cleaner.

  The last straw was two days before, when Tito had finally convinced a beautiful young lady, whom he had been courting for some time, to come and visit. Going up in the elevator with her, he was already dreaming of a night in Nirvana, but when he turned the key in the door, he realized he had guests. In addition to João, there were the boys from São Paulo again, apparently well settled-in. Tito’s visions of Nirvana dissipated and he felt so frustrated that he almost clicked his tongue in disgust. Eventually, he got up the courage to ask João to leave. The latter had ignored the request, and, to his great surprise, there was the moving van.

  For João Gilberto, it was just one more obstacle. Following his success with “Chega de saudade” in São Paulo, he was going to record “Desafinado” that November, but he felt that Jobim was taking his time in writing the arrangement. The relationship between the two of them wasn’t great, nor could it have been, after having quarreled so fiercely during the recording of the first disc. Jobim was different from the others; he put up with the insults for the sake of getting the job done, but he was capable of giving as good as he got. Before João threatened to move in with him, other than for strictly musically focused meetings, he drew a symbolic line. On the day that João appeared at Jobim’s house with the air of someone who had come to stay, Teresa, Jobim’s wife, told him purposefully, “Tom told me to tell you that he’s not home.”

  João was hurt. His heart dropped, but he picked up the pieces once again and went to live in the apartment of a singer named Sérgio Ricardo, in the Humaitá neighborhood, while he looked for another place to stay.

  Sérgio Ricardo was a young man from Marília, São Paulo, who had training in classical piano and the profile of a television actor, which he had in fact been, in São Paulo. He had come to Rio in 1956 to work as an evening pianist and singer, and had inherited an illustrious piano stool, that of Jobim at the Posto 5 nightclub. The long nights of playing American music had inspired him to compose in a modern style, and while he was recording at RGE, one of his songs, “Buquê de Isabel” (Isabel’s Bouquet) had attracted the attention of the recording company’s star, Maysa. She released the song in 1958, and Sérgio was lured by bossa nova to participate in the movement, although as a singer his voice was more along the lines of Parnassian romanticism. Within a short time, he had written several songs that embodied the new spirit, like “Pernas” (Legs) and “Folha de papel” (Sheet of Paper), which he wasn’t in any particular hurry to record.

  João Gilberto, on the other hand, was impatient to record “Desafinado.” Several people already had their eyes on the song, like Lúcio Alves and Luís Cláudio. In addition, the song was becoming known among the nightlife crowd, mainly at the Posto 5 nightclub, where Jobim and Mendonça had offered the song to Ivon Curi. All he needed now was for César de Alencar to about-face and say the song was his.

  According to André Midani, “Desafinado” took thirteen takes to be recorded by João Gilberto on November 10, 1958. This was despite the fact that Jobim had simplified the arrangement even further, in order to avoid quarrels between the singer and the orchestra. This time, Jobim merely wanted the rhythm section, with Milton Banana on drums, and some string instruments. Friction arose between him and João and had already become more than considerable—there had been shoot-outs at the OK Corral caused by far less. During one of the interminable arguments about the chords, João remarked, loudly enough to be heard on the other side of the studio, “Wow, Tom, you are stupid, aren’t you?”

  Jobim felt his blood begin to boil, but Midani calmed him down. His capacity for tolerance was reaching new extremes. “Desafinado” was finally ready, and the other side of the record would be “Hô-ba-la-lá.” Things went a little better, even with the addition of backing vocals and a percussion section. But the new musicians had been chosen by João. The percussionist was Guarany, one of the most respected drummers in the scene, despite having a peg leg—at the time, probably the only drummer in the world to work with that kind of disability. And the backing vocals comprised three of the Garotos da Lua, Milton, Acyr, and Edgardo, João’s successor in the group.

  When “Desafinado” and “Hô-ba-la-lá” hit the stores, things started to snowball. “Chega de saudade” finally made it big in Rio, spurred on by its initial success in São Paulo. This in turn caused “Desafinado” to make the charts. Despite being included in the lyrics, the expression “bossa nova” was still not popularly associated with that kind of music. João Gilberto’s singing style, hitherto unknown, was what sparked discussions. Those who were tone-deaf asked sincerely, “But is he really off-key?,” which usually generated an answer that was as ridiculous as the question: “Are you crazy? The guy has the hearing of someone with tuberculosis!”

  Many people appeared to believe the myth that people who suffered from tuberculosis, for whatever reason, had excellent hearing and therefore were always perfectly in tune. In fact, according to some doctors, medications with a streptomycin base, which are taken by those with tuberculosis, damage the acoustic nerve, affect the hearing, and therefore may compromise the ability of the patient to hold a tune. The musicians themselves already had a far less disagreeable and more precise classification to describe João Gilberto: perfect pitch, a rare quality in humans, which he shared in Brazil with Dick Farney, Dalva de Oliveira, and few others.

  Or it could have been said that, had he not been on the verge of becoming famous, that João Gilberto could have earned his living tuning tuning-forks.

  Two months later, by January 1959, Tom Jobim had eaten just about as much humble pie as he could digest during the recording of the 78 r.p.m.s. It was necessary to carry on, no matter how hard it was for him to tolerate the Bahian’s temperament, and he began to put pressure on Aloysio de Oliveira to make an entire album with João Gilberto. Ismael Corrêa and other people at Odeon seconded the idea, which would make it easier to convince Aloysio. They already had four of the traditional twelve tracks: “Chega de saudade,” “Bim-bom,” “Desafinado,” and “Hô-ba-la-lá.” The rest would be recorded, as usual, with a minimal staff in order to cut costs and reduce the risk of confusion.

  The production schedule that was followed for this album (which was, naturally, entitled Chega de saudade) is self-explanatory. Of the eight tracks that still remained to be recorded, João Gilberto recorded only one on January 23, 1959—”Brigas, nunca mais” (Fights, Never More), by Jobim and Vinícius. A week later, on January 30, he returned to the studio and recorded another: “Morena boca de ouro” (Brunette with a Mouth of Gold), by Ary Barroso. Had he continued that same schedule, the album would never have been finished. But then, in just one day, on February 4, he recorded the remaining six: “Lobo bobo” (Foolish Wolf) and “Saudade fez uma samba” (Saudade Made a Samba), by Lyra and Bôscoli; “Maria Ninguém,” by Lyra alone; “Rosa morena” (Brunette Rose) by Caymmi; “É luxo só” (It’s Just a Luxury), by Ary Barroso and Luís Peixoto; and “Aos pés da cruz” (At the Foot of the Cross), by Marino Pinto and Zé da Zilda. Strange, don’t you think?

  Not really. On the six tracks that remained, the only accompaniment was provided by a rhythm section. At the very most, it included Copinha’s flute or Maciel’s trombone; no orchestra to get on his nerves.

  The album sleeve text that Tom Jobim wrote for Chega de saudade is perhaps the best that has ever been published in Brazil. Those thirteen lines were, in their own way, informative, revelatory, and even prophetic. His contemporaries didn’t really understand much of what he said, but it was all there. “João Gilberto is a bossa nova Bahian of 27,” Tom’s t
ext started out. It was one of two references to bossa nova on the record (the other being in the lyrics to “Desafinado”), but it still took a few months for the expression to catch on. He continued: “In just a short time, he has influenced an entire generation of arrangers, guitarists, musicians and singers.”

  To the first uninitiated buyers of Chega de saudade, in April 1959, it seemed like somewhat of an exaggeration. How was it possible for a singer, whom they had barely heard of, to have already influenced “an entire generation”? But as incredible as it sounds, it was true. Those buyers, of course, did not frequent the late nights at the Plaza or go to Nara Leão’s apartment. It is worth noting that Jobim, with an uncanny knack, omitted songwriters and lyricists from the scope of his influence. Jobim, as well as Vinícius de Moraes, Newton Mendonça, and even Carlinhos Lyra still did not recognize the authority of João Gilberto to influence their compositions.

  “Our greatest concern,” continued Jobim, “was that Joãozinho should not be constrained by arrangements which inhibited his freedom, his natural agility, or his personal and nontransferable style, that is, his spontaneity”—a tactful way for Jobim to say that he had to squash his own ideas in order to finish the record without the two men going for each other’s throats.