Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World (27 page)

But for Chico, what João had to make, as soon as possible, was a record—and the quickest way to do this was to seek out one of the Odeon conductors, Antonio Carlos Jobim.

It wasn’t easy, but the push that Chico Pereira gave him armed João Gilberto with the courage he needed to ring that doorbell in Rua Nascimento Silva in Ipanema. João and Tom had never been bosom buddies in the distant past, but they knew each other from late nights at the Plaza, the Tudo Azul, and the Far West. At the time, João considered Tom a good evening pianist, like others did, although he thought that (Newton) Mendonça was better. Later he learned to admire him from afar, while Tom’s reputation as an outstanding composer grew. Jobim made himself known (with “Solidão,” “Foi a
noite,” and “Se todos fossem iguais a você” [Someone to Light up My Life]) in just the two years that João spent in exile in Porto Alegre, Diamantina, Juazeiro, and Salvador. But he had grown far beyond that. He was no longer an evening pianist who would eventually write with his collaborator, Mendonça. He had become a great professional composer, arranger, conductor, and influential person with record labels. He probably had his tuxedos made to order. It was only natural that João, dressed in clothes from Ducal, the Brazilian equivalent of Sears, felt some apprehension on ringing that doorbell.

Tom Jobim was not surprised to see João Gilberto again. He knew he had returned to Rio, after a stay in Bahia, during which he had been under the care of the “men in white coats,” as he put it. Compared with the last time he had seen him—three years ago, in the doorway of the Tudo Azul, with his hair brushing his shoulders and the appearance of someone who was thinking about migrating to the fourth dimension—he thought he was great. But Tom got the surprise of his life when João Gilberto picked up his guitar and performed “Bim-bom” and “Hô-ba-la-lá.”

Tom was not impressed by the contrast between the João he knew and the one that was standing right there in front him. Without a doubt, there was something different about the way he sang—he was no longer an Orlando Silva disciple with touches of Lúcio Alves, as he remembered hearing. He now sang more softly, hitting exact notes, without vibrato, like Chet Baker, who was all the rage at the time. But what really impressed him was his guitar playing. To begin with, he didn’t associate João with the instrument. He had never in his life heard him play, much less like that. That beat was something new. It produced a kind of rhythm that was flexible enough to take all kinds of liberties. It was possible to write for that kind of beat, which meant goodbye to the dictates of conventional samba, from which the only divergence up until then had been the
samba-canção
, which was already inducing narcolepsy in most people, both those who played it as well as those who listened to it.

From the very beginning, Tom could foresee the possibilities of this beat, which simplified the samba rhythm and left a lot of room for the ultramodern harmonies that he himself was composing. But it would be necessary to do some work within that rhythm, to test new songs and others he had already written, to see how they came out. He opened a drawer and took out several music scores that were still only half-finished or in the final stages of completion. One of them, which was already finished, had been sitting in that pile for more than a year: “Chega de saudade” (No More Blues).

Jobim had written it with Vinícius de Moraes shortly after
Orfeu da Conceição
finished its one-month run at the Teatro República. If they had written the song earlier, it would have somehow been incorporated into the play. But it was too late and they decided to keep hold of it. There was no indication that “Chega de saudade” would have a brilliant future—or any kind of future. In fact, Jobim had written it almost on a whim—a short time before, at the home of Dona Nilza, his mother, he watched the maid sweeping the living room and softly singing a
chorinho
. He was impressed with the way the girl managed to sing such a complicated song, in three parts, when the large part of what one heard on the radio fit into a single musical phrase. He decided then and there that he would also write a
chorinho
like that.

Weeks later, at his family’s country place in Poço Fundo, near Petrópolis, he got the idea for “Chega de saudade,” and when he reviewed what he had written, he realized he had created a kind of
samba-canção
in three parts, but with a
chorinho
flavor. On his return to Rio, he showed the song to Vinícius. The poet had his cases packed and ready to resume his diplomatic post in Paris, but he was gently persuaded to stay a few more days to write lyrics to it.

The two of them liked the end result. But not everyone who heard the newborn “Chega de saudade” liked Vinícius’s lyrics. For example, his wife, Lila, did not. She cited the verse “Well, there are fewer little fishes swimming in the sea / Than the little kisses I will place upon your lips.” “How stupid, rhyming ‘little fishes’ [peixinhos] with ‘little kisses’ [beijinhos],” Lila remarked.

But Vinícius obviously wasn’t in the mood to debate the issue and retorted, “Oh, don’t be so sophisticated.”

Years later, Vinícius said that one of the most difficult set of lyrics he had written had been those of “Chega de saudade,” due to the arduousness of trying to fit the words into a melodic structure with so many comings and goings. This all contributed to the uncertainty of the song’s future—until João Gilberto’s reappearance, more than a year later, made Jobim remember it and “Chega de saudade” emerged from the drawer to be made into a record with Elizeth Cardoso, entitled
Canção do amor demais
(Song for an Excessive Love).

André Midani, whom everyone thought was French, but was in fact a Syrian from Damascus, was the first to arrive at Chico Pereira’s apartment for the meeting called by the latter. He was wearing the clothes he usually wore in conservative Copacabana in 1957, and which made everyone stare at him: dirty jeans, a red shirt, and wooden clogs. Looking like that, there wasn’t anyone
who’d bet that he had a job, but Midani, after only two years in Brazil, was the head of Odeon’s international repertoire department. Within a short time he was also made responsible for the record sleeves, and eventually, the entire record label’s promotion and publicity.

Chico took two bottles of Grant’s whiskey that a friend of his, a Panair Airlines captain, had smuggled back from New York, out of the cupboard, together with the latest records by the Modern Jazz Quartet. He prepared ice, glasses, and his Grundig recorder. He was going to introduce Midani to some people he knew and admired: Ronaldo Bôscoli, Roberto Menescal, Nara Leão, Carlinhos Lyra, and a kid of fourteen, Eumir Deodato. They would play their stuff, Midani would listen, and everything would be recorded.

Midani was twenty-four and had had a little experience with the record business in Paris, which he had fled so he wouldn’t have to fight as a Frenchman in the war in Algeria. His objective was to remove the “conservative smell” from the record label for which he worked and sell records for young people. The problem was that young Brazilians had no music “of their own.” When Chico Pereira mentioned the gang, he became interested in hearing them play. And now, here they were.

Later, Midani would confess that at the beginning he wasn’t particularly impressed. After chatting with them for a few minutes, he found them all boring, except for Bôscoli, who was the oldest. They did not drink (only he and Bôscoli paid their respects to the rare Grant’s), they were far too much the family type, and, by all accounts, they weren’t even sleeping with their girlfriends. This wasn’t the model of youth in the Left Bank, where he had lived side-by-side with existentialists and witnessed Juliette Greco smoking a pipe. With such goody-two-shoes attitudes, it was
incroyable
that those young people were doing something innovative with their music. But despite his first impression, he decided to hear them. They played a few things. An hour later, Midani was truly amazed: he took a blank piece of paper out of his pocket and made them all sign right there and then. It was a contract with Odeon.

Of course, it wasn’t legally binding, but it was enough of a commitment that, when the time came, it would serve as a valid agreement between the young people and the record label. This was the
young
music he was looking for.

Just when things were starting to get better for him, João Gilberto found himself on the street again. His host, Lafita the Argentine, told him that the money he was earning for his paintings barely covered the cost of his paints, brushes, and rent, and that he didn’t feel it was fair for João to continue living there for free, without contributing so much as a toothpick to the pantry.
It turned his stomach to find himself splattered with paint from his work, even on his forehead, while João left to go out at night all dressed up and sweetly fragrant. Besides, he was fed up with doing all the housework. Another cause for his indignation was that on the few occasions he was able to get some sleep during normal hours, he was awakened at four in the morning by the arrival of João Gilberto and his expansive friend, João Donato.

What made really Lafita rebel was that João Gilberto appeared not to work—that is, at a regular job that would guarantee him earnings to rent a place to stay, or even buy a comb from a street peddler.

In fact, João actually had worked for
one
month during the five that he was his guest, with the group that accompanied singer Vanja Orico in the Golden Room at the Copacabana Palace. And what a group! Among others, it included the voices of Badeco and Severino, from Os Cariocas; João Gilberto providing voice and guitar; João Donato on the accordion; and Chaim on piano. This group would play great music even in heaven. The problem was the beautiful Vanja’s repertoire: a folk mishmash whose most sophisticated numbers were rustic songs from the Brazilian Northeast, like “Muié rendera.” Despite this fact, the show was a success and none of them, including Donato, missed a single day’s work. One night a week, the show moved to the studios of TV Tupi, in Urca, where it was aired live. (So live, in fact, that one night they broadcast Vanja’s mother’s hand transporting a spoonful of honey to her daughter’s mouth.)

It wasn’t this show that secured João Gilberto’s independence—the salary was so meager that Severino and Badeco merely did the show to supplement their wages at Rádio Nacional. But it was his only source of income at the time, during which he dedicated his greatest efforts to writing lyrics to a samba by Donato, “Minha saudade” (My Saudade). Once the gig with Vanja was over, everyone went back to their regular jobs and João merely continued on as Lafita’s guest.

That is, until the day the latter took him to task and gave him a few days’ grace period to move out. João’s eyes filled with tears, but he said nothing. That same night, he took his guitar and suitcase and went to share a room in a boarding house in Botafogo with his friend Luís Roberto, the new crooner with Os Cariocas, and a friend of his, a native of Minas Gerais named Rômulo Alves. Later, Lafita convinced himself that he had done João Gilberto a great favor by showing him the door.