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

by Castro, Ruy

  “Joãozinho took an active part in composing the arrangements contained on this album: his suggestions and ideas are all there,” he went on. Well, this was the understatement of the year: Joãozinho actually directed the recording, like the slave-driver directed the rowers with his whip in the epic Ben Hur. The difference was that João used a velvet whip. “When João Gilberto accompanies himself, he plays his guitar. When he is accompanied by an orchestra, he becomes the orchestra.” Nor would João Gilberto have it any other way, Jobim could have added. And it’s clear that the “orchestra” had to be João Gilberto. Odeon did not want to spend the money, and halfway through the project Jobim himself became convinced that it was better that way; the less people there were surrounding the star, the better. Besides, João Gilberto was an orchestra all by himself.

  Jobim went on: “He [João] believed that there is always room for something new, different and pure that—although at first, may not seem like it—can become, as we say in the music industry, highly marketable.” This was in fact a message from Jobim to their internal audience at Odeon, from which he still perceived a certain amount of resistence to João Gilberto and to that type of music. The last sentence—”P.S. Caymmi thinks so, too”—was a sure guarantee, coming from the man to whom Aloysio de Oliveira listened most.

  By saying that that type of music could become “highly marketable,” Jobim was merely remembering the writings of Norman Vincent Peale and applying a kind of wishful thinking. At the beginning of 1959, no one could guarantee that something so modern and sophisticated would one day be “highly marketable.” João Gilberto himself wouldn’t have dared tempt fate like that. In private, for example, he remarked to Ronaldo Bôscoli, “It won’t go anywhere, Ronaldo. There are too many of them.”

  “Them” were the enemies. But if Jobim himself had also been somewhat unsure of what he was saying, it wouldn’t take Odeon and the other recording companies long to find out that bossa nova was more than just wishful thinking.

  Life seemed so rosy at the beginning of 1959 that João Gilberto didn’t even flinch when Sérgio Ricardo also asked him to go and live elsewhere. João spent the day sleeping on the couch in the living room, and Sérgio felt that this inconvenienced his parents and sister, who lived with him. João Gilberto was like a shuttlecock thrown from one side to another. But this time, the eviction was painless. João packed up his junk, stuffed it into a matchbox-size suitcase, and left for where, he soon found out, he should have gone a long time ago: Ronaldo Bôscoli’s apartment in Rua Otaviano Hudson.

  Part II

  The Long Holiday

  11

  Bossa Nova Goes to School

  Bossa nova comes out of its shell: Sylvinha Telles singing, Norma Bengell and Bôscoli on the right, and the whole gang at the “First Samba Session Festival,” September 22, 1959

  Collection of João Luiz de Albuquerque

  The photographer, Chico Pereira, adjusted the lights and lenses in his studio and instructed the star to smile for his Chega de saudade (No More Blues) album sleeve photo.

  “You know I don’t smile, Chico,” replied João Gilberto, supressing a smile.

  It was February in Rio and the temperature outside had already exceeded thirty degrees Celsius (86 °F)—imagine what it must have been like inside the studio. But João Gilberto was wearing a wool sweater, a white sweater with two blue stripes around the cuffs and bordering the V-neck, which he had asked to “borrow” from Ronaldo Bôscoli. It wasn’t that he was cold. He merely wanted to hide the narrow-striped, short-sleeved shirt he was wearing, which didn’t seem very flattering to him, although it was the best one he owned. João placed his hand on his chin, struck a “cool” and solitary Montgomery Clift–style pose for the camera, and just as Chico Pereira fired the flash, the spotlight illuminating the back of the picture went pfffft and burned out.

  Chico only realized this upon developing the film. In the photos, there was a shadow behind João Gilberto that looked like a hatchet aimed at his head. It was the shadow of the spotlight. The photos would have to be redone, but there wasn’t time. When André Midani, who was responsible for the album sleeves, approved one of them regardless, Chico said “to hell with it,” and the cover was printed like that. And, ah yes, João forgot to return Ronaldo Bôscoli’s sweater.

  Ronaldo would never have ventured to ask for it back, as João Gilberto lived with him and therefore had free access to his closet, just like Ronaldo helped himself to the contents of Nara’s father’s closet. Sometimes, the expensive socks and underwear that Bôscoli would appropriate from the lawyer Jairo’s dresser drawers would suddenly materialize on João Gilberto, to whom it was all somewhat of a novelty. For the first time, among the many houses in which he had stayed since he had left Salvador in 1950—nine years earlier—he was finally able to make himself completely at home with no restrictions.

  Not that he would have changed his behavior. The following were now living permanently in Ronaldo’s studio apartment, which was the size of a doll’s house: Bôscoli, Chico Feitosa, João Gilberto, and that amiable messenger boy (six feet tall, with a 600-watt voice), Luís Carlos Dragão. The four of them were enough to completely crowd the place, bringing to mind a scene from the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera, but their number was frequently further augmented by the presence of Luís Carlos Miéle, a stage manager at TV Continental, whose beard took up enough space for one more. Miéle, who had only one pair of pants (although it was a pair of dress pants), was becoming a permanent fixture in the apartment.

  Despite this population explosion, João Gilberto made himself at home. For example, he would occupy the bathroom for at least two hours every time he went in. The others weren’t petty enough to be bothered by this and would go downstairs to a neighboring bar to use the facilities. They were even generous enough to share their toothbrushes with him, should he have needed them.

  But his arrival upset the straightforward schedule of the apartment. As João Gilberto’s hours of activity were mainly at night, the others were awakened by him in the early hours, hearing him talk and sing as if he were planning to take a vow of eternal silence the following day. The difference was that, at nine in the morning, João Gilberto would decide to go to bed, while Ronaldo, Feitosa, and Miéle left for work. Bôscoli was a reporter for the magazine Manchete and freelanced at Odeon as a writer for record sleeve text and press releases; Chico Feitosa now worked at the magazine Sétimo Céu (Seventh Heaven). It was normal for João Gilberto to come in at four in the morning and wake them up to listen to a new harmony he had created for an old song, which he had just remembered, like “Doralice” or “Trevo de quatro folhas” (I’m Looking over a Four-Leaf Clover). The recital would continue until sunrise, until João went to sleep and the two journalists dragged themselves, half-asleep, to their jobs—humming “Doralice” or “Trevo de quatro folhas,” after having heard each one twenty times.

  On one of the rare occasions when he managed to go to sleep and wake up at a reasonable hour—because he was attending a lunch with President Juscelino Kubitschek in the old Manchete building in Rua Frei Caneca—Bôscoli got a shock. As he was getting ready, he searched for his best suit and couldn’t find it. He also noticed João Gilberto’s absence. He hadn’t yet come home. There was no sign of him or the suit. When he found out that João Gilberto had needed the suit for a performance in São Paulo, Ronaldo did what he had to do; he put on his second-best suit (which he wore every day) and went to lunch with the President.

  Roberto Menescal had warned him that if he allowed João Gilberto into his home, Ronaldo’s routine would be dramatically altered. He also warned Ronaldo that if he let João Gilberto speak his mind, he would discover the delights of being overshadowed by a superior intellgience. But Bôscoli, who had not yet completed his Ph.D. in João Gilberto, didn’t really believe him. By the time he finally did, he was already under his spell, and not just him, but also Feitosa, Miéle, Dragão, and anyone else who hung out in the apartme
nt. It was made implicitly clear among all the roommates, for example, that João Gilberto would not be responsible for a single cent of household expenses, nor would they ever have brought up such a tedious issue. João made the odd contribution here and there, bringing home fresh fruit, almost always tangerines (apparently his favorite fruit).

  Music was the only matter discussed in the apartment. Composer Marino Pinto, who was older than them and had written the lyrics to “Aos pés da cruz” (At the Foot of the Cross), lived on the floor above and had a canary. By the time the canary awakened, at that generally inconvenient time of day typical of canaries, they had already been listening to João Gilberto since the previous night and were in the mood to make comparisons. João Gilberto himself approached the window, strained to listen, and remarked disgustedly:

  “Do you hear that? In Brazil, even the canaries sing off-key.”

  With the success of “Chega de saudade,” Jobim opened his drawer in one go, and out flew a flock of beautiful birds. He had already lightened its load of the songs that Elizeth had recorded on Canção do amor demais, but plenty of the ones that he had composed with Vinícius were still left, and, more importantly, his piano remained open and was in production. Besides, the poet had gone to take up a post in Montevideo, which opened the way for Jobim to write with other lyricists. Between the middle of 1958 and the end of 1959, he released enough songs to keep a radio station in jobims for twenty-four straight hours, if need be: “Caminhos cruzados” (Crossroads), “Domingo azul do mar” (Blue Sunday of the Sea), “Meditação” (Meditation), “Discussão” (Discussion), “Desafinado” (Off-Key) and “Samba de uma nota só” (One Note Samba), all with Newton Mendonça; “De você eu gosto” (I Like You), “Dindi,” “Demais” (Too Much), and “Eu preciso de você” (I Need You), with Aloysio de Oliveira; “Esquecendo você” (Forgetting You), “Cancão da eterna despedida” (Song of the Eternal Goodbye), “Este seu olhar” (That Look You Wear), “Fotografia” (Photograph), and “Só em teus braços” (Only in Your Arms), by him alone; and “É preciso dizer adeus” (We Have to Say Goodbye), “A felicidade” (Happiness), “Canta, canta mais” (Sing, Sing Some More), “O nossa amor” (Our Love), “O que tinha de ser” (What Had to Be), “Sem você” (Without You), “Por toda minha vida” (For All My Life), “Brigas, nunca mais” (Fights, Never More), and “Eu sei que vou te amar” (I Know I Will Love You), with Vinícius. Anyone who had never heard of Antonio Carlos Jobim soon got to know and admire him. And whoever already knew his music had reason to be impressed: the man had become a fountain of beauty.

  Sylvinha Telles released most of those songs. In 1959, she recorded two albums in barely four months, a total of twenty-four songs of which eighteen were Jobim’s. Other songs by Jobim appeared for the first time on albums by Agostinho dos Santos, Luiz Cláudio, Elza Laranjeira, Carlos José, Lenita Bruno, Norma Bengell, Isaurinha Garcia, Maysa, and, of course, João Gilberto. Just a short time before, he had been seeking out César de Alencar and Ivon Curi in an effort to persuade them to sing his songs, remember? Now he had singers at his door, begging for his songs. At thirty-two years of age, he was finally able to buy his apartment on Rua Nascimento Silva, no longer having to pay rent, and even bought his first car, a little blue Beetle, and thus no longer had to rely on people to give him a ride.

  All those songs were written during the anxious years of 1958 and 1959. This rate of production alone would have been impressive, but Jobim somehow also found time to conduct TV Tupi’s orchestra on a weekly basis for the program Noite de gala (Gala Night); to write new songs for the film Orfeu do Carnaval (Black Orpheus); to write the music for an Italian film, Copacabana Palace, with Mylène Démongeot, and to have an affair with her; to present the program O bom Tom (Good Tone) on TV Paulista, São Paulo’s channel 5, for almost a year in 1959; and to produce Sylvinha Telles’s and João Gilberto’s albums and even put up with the latter’s abuse.

  But all of this brought him much more than just money. Going to São Paulo to present the program O bom Tom every Monday at 8:35 P.M., for example, helped him conquer his fear of flying. O bom Tom was an easy program to do, despite being aired live. Jobim, sitting at the piano, performed a few songs and received his guests, who would sing other songs, accompanied by him. Agostinho dos Santos was a regular because, as well as being a billed star, he lived in São Paulo, which saved the sponsor, the Três Leões general stores, the cost of several airfares. Vinícius and Ronaldo Bôscoli were also frequent guests because they were extremely cheap: the poet traveled by train, the journalist by bus. On one of his journeys to São Paulo, Bôscoli felt ill on the bus and, not having much choice in the matter, carefully vomited into the overcoat pocket of the Japanese gentleman who was sleeping at his side.

  Writing the music to the film Copacabana Palace didn’t contribute much to Jobim’s paycheck, either. If it hadn’t been for those evenings after work, playing guitar and singing for the French star Mylène Démongeot by the Rodrigo de Freitas lake, he would have considered it a waste of his time. During those open-air soirées, Jobim was accompanied by João Gilberto, Luiz Bonfá, and Os Cariocas, but the continuation of those evenings at the Ponta do Cocô (Shit Cape) in São Conrado beach, in the blue Beetle, were purely à deux. They were even better than winning the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival.

  The other film for which he had just finished collaborating, Black Orpheus, won not only the Golden Palm at Cannes but also the 1959 Oscar for Best Foreign Film, but it brought him nothing but trouble. It was a French-Italian-Brazilian co-production, based on the play Orfeu da Conceição, which he and Vinícius had staged in Rio in 1956. All the songs from the original score, among which was “Se todos fossem iguais a você” (Someone to Light up My Life), had been purposefully written for Vinícius’s Greek tragedy, set during Rio Carnival. But the film’s producer, the Frenchman Sacha Gordine, informed them that he did not want to use any of the existing songs, and insisted that they write an entirely new score.

  Jobim had no idea why it was necessary to again subject himself to such a tedious task. But Gordine was Vinícius’s friend from his Paris days, and if there was to be no discussion on the matter, the only thing left to do was open up the piano. The duo wrote three songs, mostly over the telephone, given that Vinícius was now working for the Itamaraty in Montevideo: “A felicidade,” “Frevo,” and “O nosso amor.” Marcel Camus, the film’s director, felt that that wasn’t enough and asked Luiz Bonfá—who played guitar on the soundtrack—to compose something for him.

  Bonfá was about to leave for the United States, where he intended to pursue success with nothing more than his face, his wits, and his guitar, particularly the latter two, and didn’t have time to write anything new. So instead he opened up his own drawer and took out two songs for which he had not yet written any lyrics and showed them to Camus. The director was not impressed, but Gordine loved them and, at Vinícius’s suggestion, invited the famous columnist Rubem Braga to write the lyrics. The columnist admitted that samba lyrics weren’t his forte, and recommended his colleague Antônio Maria. It took Maria a while, but eventually he delivered the lyrics—which were surprisingly optimistic—and the two instrumental pieces became “Manhã de carnaval” (A Day in the Life of a Fool) and “Samba de Orfeu” (Orpheus’s Samba).

  Once the songs had been compiled, who was going be the voice of Breno Mello (Orpheus) and Marpessa Dawn (Eurydice), the stars of the film? The two of them had to be dubbed, Marpessa, because she was American, and Breno, because he wasn’t much of a singer. (Unfortunately, he wasn’t much of an actor, either. He was a soccer player for the Fluminense team and had been suggested to Camus by Ronaldo Bôscoli because he was black, good-looking, and athletic.) Selecting a vocalist to be the voice of Eurydice was easy—Elizeth Cardoso, who had just recorded the album Canção do amor demais and who was currently Vinícius’s darling—but who auditioned to be the voice of Orpheus?

  “Bingo” to whoever guessed João Gilberto. Had they hired him, h
e would have been the least dramatic Orpheus in the entire history of Greece, or at least to the Greece that Vinícius had adapted to the slums of the Babilônia hill in Rio. They argued that his voice did not have a black enough touch for what was required of Orpheus’s voice, and Agostinho dos Santos got the job instead. João Gilberto swallowed his diappointment, but it was regurgitated when Black Orpheus won a shelf-load of awards and Agostinho shot to international fame. (João Gilberto never got over that rejection. In August of the following year, when the film was released, he recorded “Manhã de carnaval,” “A felicidade,” and “O nosso amor” on a 45 r.p.m. seven-inch disc.)

  Jobim also had his reasons for feeling that Black Orpheus was a Trojan Horse. With the success of the film and its songs, he discovered that, in addition to Vinícius, he had acquired a multitude of business partners who were taking a share of the money that the songs were earning abroad: the producer, Sacha Gordine, who retained the copyright to the songs in Europe and who, as editor, got 50 percent; and the director, Marcel Camus, and the two French lyricists, who had gone in as collaborating partners and split the remaining 50 percent authors’ cut with Jobim and Vinícius, which meant that they ended up with just 10 percent each, which would be further slashed by French taxes. It wasn’t fair. And where had those lyricists come from, if in the film the songs were only played in Portuguese? It was clear to Jobim that it was all going straight into Gordine’s pocket. This was why he had them write an entirely new score, because the copyright to the original songs had already been secured in Brazil.