Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World (30 page)

The second confrontation was between João Gilberto and the technicians. Accustomed to
normal
singers, who accounted for three tracks every four hours (the average recording rate on planet Earth), they couldn’t understand such maniacal perfectionism, which was turning the recording of a simple 78 r.p.m. into an endless Cuban soap opera. The upheaval was prolonged for days following the third and worst conflict, between João Gilberto and Jobim himself. In addition to his nitpicking and bickering with the musicians and technicians, João Gilberto’s complaints about the chords were elevating the tension between the two of them to the tautness of a violin string. One more accusation from either one of the two—like João Gilberto repeating yet again that Jobim “didn’t understand anything”—would mean the end of “Chega de saudade” and “Bim-bom.”

But it was in fact a deep and far-reaching insult by João Gilberto that ended up re-establishing a harmonious atmosphere: “Tom, you’re lazy—you’re Brazilian.” There was nothing else to do but laugh, and carry on to the end.

According to Milton Banana, the recording took “almost a month,” coincidentally, the same month (June 1958) that the Brazilian soccer team was playing in the World Cup in Sweden. Banana was exaggerating. What he probably meant to say was that it took a month for all the different stages to be finalized—Jobim writing the arrangements, João Gilberto rehearsing with him at home, the meetings between João Gilberto and Banana to coordinate guitar and percussion, rehearsals with the orchestra, and, finally, the recording itself. All in all, actual studio time probably wasn’t more than a few days, and not even Odeon had enough studios to allow one of them to be occupied for weeks on end by a singer whose commercial success seemed, at best, doubtful. The official recording date for “Chega de saudade” and “Bim-bom,” July 10, was merely the date on which the definitive takes were recorded.

After all that confusion, Odeon deprioritized the project, and realized that, when they thought about it, they had no idea how to categorize João Gilberto. He wasn’t exactly Anísio Silva (the recording company’s biggest seller); that was
clear. But he wasn’t Lúcio Alves either, and Odeon only knew how to think in those terms. The record hit the Rio stores and radio stations in August, in a supplement that included, among other assorted absurdities, “Cachito” by Trio Irakitan, “Sayonara” by singer Lenita Bruno, and “Nel blu di pinto di blu” by violinist Fafá Lemos. That is to say, with no competition whatsoever.

But nothing happened with “Chega de saudade” or “Bim-bom” in the first few months following their release—not because João Gilberto was too different for the market’s tastes, but because no one was listening to it. (Sophisticated radio stations, like the Rio-based Tamoio or Eldorado, who were the first to discover it, didn’t count, according to IBOPE [The Brazilian Institute of Public Opinion and Statistics]). But no other recording released at the time took off either, because the only thing that was played on the radio and through loudspeakers in stores was the victory anthem of the Brazilian soccer team in Sweden, “A Taça do Mundo é nossa” (The World Cup Is Ours), with the vocal ensemble Titulares do Ritmo (The Counts of Rhythm).

But sales director Ismael Corrêa, who after all was running the show and had pushed to make the recording, refused to be beaten. The record—whatever category it fell into—could take off. He waited two months, until people had gotten used to the idea that Brazil was the world soccer champion and came back down to earth, and prepared to play the last card in his hand: releasing the record in São Paulo. In 1958, São Paulo was already the main market and had the largest chain of record and electrical appliance stores in the country, Lojas Assumpção. With twenty-five branches, almost all of them in the city and within the wealthy interior of the state, the Lojas Assumpção alone were practically able to dictate the success or failure of a record, as long as it was well promoted. Additionally, they were the sponsors of the music show with the largest audience in São Paulo radio,
Parada de sucessos
(Hit Parade), aired daily on Rádio Excélsior-Nacional by disc jockey Hélio de Alencar, from eleven-thirty in the morning to noon. If Alencar liked a record, the record label had only to fire up the presses.

In 1958, Oswaldo Gurzoni was the influential director of sales at Odeon in São Paulo. He entered the Bossa Nova history books as the man who, on hearing the 78 r.p.m. with “Chega de saudade” and “Bim-bom,” had an apoplectic fit and smashed the record over his salesmen’s heads, shouting, “This is the shit they’re sending us from Rio!”

The story is a classic, and has been repeated over and over by all lazy researchers. It allows them to indulge in their favorite pastime, guessing at the past, and to expand upon how João Gilberto had to face the tanks and cannons of even his own army. Let us suppose, in the meantime, that things were a little different.

Ismael Corrêa sent a copy of the acetate record to Gurzoni with instructions from Aloysio that, in order to avoid a fiasco like the one in Rio, João Gilberto should be promoted in São Paulo with more zeal than usual. Gurzoni, who had heard of João Gilberto about as much as he had heard of Karlheinz Stockhausen, made a note of the message. He called together his marketing team and played the record in Odeon’s São Paulo studio in Rua General Jardim. On the suggestion of Gurzoni himself, Odeon had stopped designating A and B sides on record labels to encourage radio stations to play both sides. But on seeing the names of Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes attributed as the authors, he decided that “Chega de saudade” must be side A, and played it first.

When he listened to the record, he couldn’t understand why the label classified it as a
samba-canção
. If that was a
samba-canção
, then he was Pope Pius XII. The singer didn’t have a very strong voice, and he didn’t keep to the rhythm; and what kind of damn rhythm was that? He turned the record over and played “Bim-bom.” Another disappointment. The lyrics were silly and had no meaning; Aloysio must be crazy. Gurzoni didn’t smash the record. He merely bellowed his opinion, which was swiftly shared by the entire marketing team—except for one man, named Adail Lessa, who was very enthusiastic about João Gilberto. But they weren’t assembled there to express their personal likes or dislikes, and the message from Rio was clear: the record
had
to be submitted to all those little tricks that usually guaranteed success.

The first thing to do was to win over Álvaro Ramos, sales manager of Lojas Assumpção. If Ramos liked the record, that would be more than half the battle. It was from him that orders would come for all the Assumpção store clerks to employ an old series of tactics used to sell this or that record. One of those tactics, obviously, was to play the record all day long in the booths that looked out onto the street. If some passerby happened to withstand the onslaught and came into the store to buy another record that wasn’t X, the store clerk would start playing record X while he went into the back to look for the record that the customer had asked for. In most cases, the customer would take both. It was a matter of crossing one’s fingers and seeing what Ramos thought of it.

Gurzoni invited Ramos to have coffee with him, Lessa, and the rest of the Odeon marketing team. Years later, Ramos would admit that it might have been “somewhat unwillingly” that he left the central office of Lojas Assumpção, in Rua do Curtume, to go and listen to an amateur in Rua General Jardim. The traffic he encountered on the way did nothing to improve his mood. Gurzoni played “Chega de saudade” for him. Ramos felt as if he were being mocked. “Why do you record singers who’ve got a cold?,” he growled.

He didn’t bother waiting for the song to finish, and he never got to hear “Bim-bom.” He snatched the record off the turntable, shouted the famous line, “So this
is the shit they’re sending us from Rio?”, and smashed it on the edge of the table. Gurzoni and Lessa froze.

Right then and there, the two of them began a campaign of indoctrination on Álvaro Ramos. Gurzoni didn’t really know what to say, but Lessa was masterful in his defense of the music that Ramos had refused to listen to. It was something different, modern, bold. Boring old squares would be up in arms, and this would cause a controversy that would attract a new type of audience. Young people would buy the record. Ramos thought for a minute. He didn’t mind for a second being called square, but he didn’t want to be accused of missing out on a good deal. And his business was to sell records, not music.

Gurzoni and Lessa felt that Ramos would work more enthusiastically if he liked the record at least a little. Without realizing what they were doing, they convinced him to allow them to introduce him to João Gilberto. They would bring the singer from Rio especially to meet him. Ramos agreed and arranged a lunch at his house that weekend. In Rio, Odeon located João Gilberto and put him on a train to São Paulo, where Lessa went to pick him up at the train station. As you can tell, life was somewhat simpler in those days—João Gilberto could be moved from position A to position B at a mere request.

The date and time of the lunch found them all face-to-face in that huge house in São Paulo: the buyer (Álvaro Ramos), the salesmen (Oswaldo Gurzoni and Adail Lessa), and the merchandise (João Gilberto). Dona Ignez, Álvaro’s wife, produced a mayonnaise and a stroganoff, which João Gilberto merely pushed around with his fork and pretended to take bites of, while making colorful remarks like “Why was electricity invented? Don’t we already have the sun?” In order to avoid Dona Ignez taking offense to his reaction to her culinary talents, Gurzoni and Lessa quickly turned the conversation to music, before some disparaging comment about the food was made. A guitar was produced, but João Gilberto didn’t sing “Chega de saudade” or “Bim-bom,” as expected. Instead, he sang, no less than four times, “Fibra de herói” (The Strength of a Hero), a choral piece composed in 1942 by long-hair maestro Guerra Peixe. Ramos was very impressed. When he was leaving, João Gilberto saw a child on the sidewalk in front of the house. He picked a rose from Dona Ignez’s garden, crossed the street and offered it to the child. If Gurzoni didn’t really understand what was going on, Álvaro Ramos’s state of mind can only be described as catatonic.

They were in the presence of either a madman or a genius—perhaps both, he thought. But the important thing was, by means of the stuffy “Fibra de herói,” João Gilberto had convinced him to sell “Chega de saudade” and “Bim-bom.” The disc set record sales levels in Lojas Assumpção that year.

The disc jockey Hélio de Alencar played the record on his show
Parada de sucessos
, and made known, over the microphone at Rádio Excélsior-Nacional, how it had been smashed in the Odeon office in São Paulo. But he didn’t say by
whom. The story got out that the frenzied murderer of the record had been poor, dear Oswaldo Gurzoni. The latter let it lie, because he wasn’t trying to win a popularity contest, and because this would give the impression that João Gilberto was a singer who went against the flow (which, in fact, he did). It would be good for sales and, after all, the record was being aimed at the younger market. As we know, his strategy worked, and even today, Gurzoni still laughs at the terrible reputation he acquired because of Álvaro Ramos’s attitude.

The latter also thinks it’s funny, but makes no apology: “At the time, I really did think the singer had a cold.”

“Listen to this record, call Rádio Bandeirantes at 36-6331 or 36-8451, sing the tune, the lyrics, and the rhythm, and win ten albums!”

The record was “Chega de saudade” by João Gilberto, and the program was
O pick-up do Picapau
(Woodpecker’s Pick), which another disc jockey from São Paulo, Walter Silva, had debuted on Rádio Bandeirantes at the beginning of December. Dozens of listeners phoned in that day, trying to repeat what they had heard, but were rejected by conductor Erlon Chaves, who was present in the studio, after just the first few notes. A few already knew the lyrics by heart and others managed to passably sing the tune, but they all floundered at João Gilberto’s rhythm—it seemed impossible to imitate. Except for two listeners who managed to sing it perfectly. The first identified himself as Francisco Nepomuceno de Oliveira, who was, in fact, Chico, vocalist with the group Titulares do Ritmo. The second didn’t count: it was the compulsively accurate singer Agostinho dos Santos.

In the months that followed, “Chega de saudade” became the opening track for
O pick-up do Picapau
—much against the wishes of the station’s marketing director, Samir Razuk, according to Walter Silva. Bandeirantes was a popular station in São Paulo, with an audience that favored singers of questionable taste. But
O pick-up do Picapau
, due largely to the opinionated personality of Walter Silva, was gaining ground on the dial, and within three months, had 22 percent of the radio audience, overtaking
Parada de sucessos
. “Chega de saudade” remained uncontested on both programs. João Gilberto, known in Rio only within the music circle and in two or three apartments, became a mini-phenomenon to the São Paulo public.