It all began on a cold night in Georgetown as we left Blues Alley with some American friends of ours. Talks about Jazz tendencies are common after newbie acts taking place at this well-known establishment situated in the DC alleys. We talked about creativity and the habitual reinvention of Jazz and its tendencies in the United States...Cool jazz, free jazz, beebop, bossa nova...Wait up! Bossa Nova? American creativity has no credit on that one. Or does it? I argued that, as a Brazilian, I had to say that Bossa Nova is high quality Brazilian music.
Years later, while conversing with some young George Washington University students after a lecture about Brazilian social policy, we began to discuss music, and upon mentioning that The Girl From Ipanema was sung for the first time in Portuguese in Brazil I noticed the surprised look on their faces. They thought that it had been composed by some North American artist who, after spending some time in the marvelous city, brought in its baggage, in sound and lyrics, the disillusion of not having seduced that unattainable muse, interpreted so gracefully by the great voice of Frank Sinatra.
The truth is that as many other cultural innovations, Bossa Nova tangled in the everyday lives of Americans and, although the more knowledgeable and traveled recognize and value it as a Brazilian tune, many, after almost fifty years of cohabitation and more than three generations of American musicians adapting and merging its most diverse rhythms and styles, do not recognize it as such. That which is good becomes global, and the United States, because of its gravitational weight and its economy, ends up being the neuralgic center of globalization.
But there is something particular about Bossa Nova that led it to immediate international stardom: the fact that, being born in Brazil, its godfathers are renowned artists – Brazilian and American – who adopted, interpreted and developed its style. Many were the North Americans who, for the sake of bossa nova, traveled through Brazil and many are Brazilian who, with bossa nova, traveled to the US and elsewhere in the world. This certainly did not happen with other national music styles where its nobility and prodigality continues contained within our cultural borders.
In search for the starting line of this story, I told my friend Arnoldo Medeiros[1] - renowned bossa nova second generation composer, starting after 1968, with famous named partners such as Marcos Valle, Roberto Menescal and Dori Caymmi - about my interest in knowing how it all began. Through him I began to learn of some details to follow its clues, contacts, facts and events that will be explored and little by little revealed in this blog.
At the same time, I hope that this blog can be an open forum for all who can share some interesting detail or have something to contribute to this history that both Americans and Brazilians know so little of. Bossa nova is and will continue to be highly valued in the
André Medici
March 2007
