Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World (33 page)

In 1958, a common obsession united those young men: to free themselves from the accordion and take up the guitar, which, incidentally, would make them much more popular with girls. They all believed that their chances with members of the opposite sex would increase if they could only duplicate what they heard on certain records that they played until they wore out: “Dans mon Óle” (On My Island) by the Frenchman Henri Salvador (which Caetano Veloso, who was of the same generation, would record thirty years later); the sensual and sultry “Fever” by Peggy Lee (of which Norma Bengell would do a fabulous cover version on her album
Ooooooh! Norma
in 1959); and, by general consensus, “Cry Me a River” by Julie London (but only because of Barney Kessel’s guitar).

All of these songs were foreign, but what choice did they have? It was what was young and modern, and in their minds no one was doing anything
comparable in Brazil—until they were introduced to João Gilberto singing “Chega de saudade.” From that moment on, their lives were never the same again.

Right before the 78 r.p.m. with “Chega de saudade” hit the radio stations—before the record had even been released—spools of tape containing the voice and guitar of João Gilberto were already making the rounds of Copacabana and Ipanema. “Making the rounds” is a figure of speech. Few people owned tape recorders in those precassette days, which restricted the tape’s audience to the friends of someone who owned a recorder. One of those tapes had been recorded by the photographer Chico Pereira, who fortunately was a man with lots of friends; another, by the singer Luís Cláudio. On almost all of them, João Gilberto sang “Bim-bom,” “Hô-ba-la-lá,” “Aos pés da cruz” (At the Foot of the Cross), “Chega de saudade,” and other songs he never recorded on disc, like “Louco” (Madman) by Henrique de Almeida and Wilson Batista, and “Barquinho de papel” (Little Paper Boat) by Carlinhos Lyra.

Several youngsters got hold of those tapes by chance, and from that moment on, sat up all night thinking about his guitar beat. Most of them swore not to rest until they had managed to duplicate what they called “that beat.” One of them (it could have been anyone) was the accordion novice Pingarilho, who was seventeen. He heard the tape at his neighbor Luís Cláudio’s apartment in Rua Rainha Elizabeth, and pestered the singer until the latter, who was a good guitarist, taught him how to play “that beat.” In order to do this, Pingarilho all but moved into Luís Cláudio’s apartment, hoping that at any moment his friend João Gilberto might walk in the door carrying his guitar. But João Gilberto, whose radar appeared to be tuned to such things, never turned up while he was there.

Other youngsters heard the beat for the first time at Menescal and Lyra’s academy, which was then located in Rua Cinco de Julho, ever since the condom incident. (Despite the scandal, the student body continued to be predominantly female.) “In fact, we didn’t really teach guitar,” Menescal would later remark. “We taught João Gilberto’s beat. No one came out of there trained as a soloist.” Together with the beat that Lyra and Menescal taught came the songs they used to illustrate it: the repertoires of Jobim and Vinícius, Jobim and Newton Mendonça, Tito Madi, Luiz Bonfá, Garoto, and the first songs written by Lyra, Oscar, and Chico Feitosa. (Menescal still did not attempt to compose, he said he preferred fishing.) After all, for a handful of youngsters from Rio, the asyet-unpublished and invisible João Gilberto was already a voice, or at least a guitar beat.

It was then, around the summer of 1958, that
Canção do amor demais
(Song for an Excessive Love), with Elizeth, was released. Those few youngsters were
the only ones to recognize that on at least two of the tracks, “Chega de saudade” and “Outra vez” (One More Time), Elizeth’s Prussian ‘r’s were backed by that revolutionary guitar. Months later, the
real
“Chega de saudade,” by João Gilberto, was released. They were already familiar with “that beat,” but now they had the records. They could practice at home, listening to them day and night. And the records—breakable but portable—began to circulate at the speed of light among Rio high schools and universities, from the Mallet Soares school to the Mello e Souza, from the College of Architecture, in Praia Vermelha, to the PUC (Pontificial Catholic University) in Gávea. Never had so many classes been skipped. Girls and boys threw parties and gatherings just to listen to João Gilberto. When the record was being played, nobody spoke. Every beat echoed in church-like silence, and the rhythm and harmony were meticulously dissected.

For the first time, it became unthinkable to hold these parties without a guitar, a formerly accursed instrument. Whoever learned the new harmonies taught them to the others rather than keeping them for themselves, as was apparently commonplace among the previous generation. Learning that beat became an obsession in Rio, and to play any other way was considered
square
. Those who didn’t play the guitar had to make do with singing, but as long as they could manage to do a passable imitation of João Gilberto, they were guaranteed them some leeway with the girls. Those with the most finely tuned ears began to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. They began to perceive vestiges of those sounds in previous records, such as Sylvinha Telles’s album
Carícia
(Caress); Tito Madi’s 78 r.p.m. “Menina Moça” (Girl); and in some of the recordings by Os Cariocas. The name Jobim appeared on the “Chega de saudade” label, as well as on that of
Orfeu da Conceição
(Black Orpheus), and in half the songs on
Carícia
. The kids were taking this all in.

Described thus, it sounds like a huge crowd of people had their ears tuned to the record. But it was only a small crowd. There was no communication between the groups, and anyone could consider him- or herself the exclusive owner of “Chega de saudade,” already a cult classic. The fans needed to organize an event that would gather them all together and prove that even though there weren’t very many of them, they weren’t alone.

During the first half of 1958, for example, young Moysés Fuks was the editor of
Tablóide UH
, a daily section containing assorted information on show business, of the newspaper
Última Hora
. Reporter Chico Feitosa and apprentice Nara Leão worked (a figure of speech) side-by-side in the editorial room in Praça da Bandeira. Ronaldo Bôscoli, then with
Manchete Esportiva
magazine, became a collaborator and wrote an all-purpose column, which covered soccer, popular
music, and assorted news. Being editor of the section was easy for Fuks. What was hard was also being the artistic director for the
Grupo Universitário Hebraico do Brasil
(University Hebrew Group of Brazil), an association of Jewish students in Flamengo. One of his tasks in the group was to organize nights of musical events for the members that did not include the compulsory “Hava Nagila,” a traditional Jewish folk song that would shortly become a huge hit for Chubby Checker. But the Hebrew Group did not have the money to hire either famous or little-known entertainers and did not yet possess sufficient talent to guarantee a varied weekly program like that of the Tatuís club, much less for free.

But one of Fuks’s sisters was a student at Menescal and Lyra’s academy. Hearing her practice at home, he got to hear the gang’s songs firsthand: “Lobo bobo” (Foolish Wolf), “Sente” (Feel), “Se é tarde me perdoa” (Forgive Me if It’s Too Late), “Não faz assim” (Don’t Do That), and “Maria Ninguém” (Maria Nobody). He then heard them again, sung by Feitosa, Normando, and Nara, as well as Menescal and Lyra, at Nara’s apartment and at Aná and Lu’s house. Fuks got excited about the group and offered Bôscoli the University Hebrew Group’s auditorium for a concert. He didn’t need to ask twice. He merely suggested they include someone “who had made a name of sorts.”

Bôscoli immediately thought of João Gilberto, but he was not available. Sylvinha Telles was chosen. Despite being a professional, having recorded an album, and even having been a TV star, she considered herself “one of the gang” and knew their repertoire by heart. Feitosa, Nara, Lyra, and Normando would sing back-up vocals, accompanied by Menescal on the guitar; Luizinho Eça on piano; Bebeto on alto sax; an American boy who lived in Rio, named Bill Horn, on French horn; Henrique Montes on double bass; and João Mário on drums. Bôscoli would emcee the show.

Fuks drafted the program for what would be performed that night and then had it mimeographed and mailed to all the members. He promised “a
bossa nova
evening.” No copies of that program are in existence today, nor does Fuks remember why he used that expression to describe the content of the show, but he swears it wasn’t whispered to him by a prophet from the Old Testament. The word
bossa
, at least, was far from new, having been used by musicians since the days of yore to define someone who played or sang differently. Veteran singer Cyro Monteiro, for example, had a lot of
bossa
. In 1932, Noel Rosa used the word in a samba (“Coisas Nossas” [Our Specialties]), which went
O samba, a prontidão e outras bossas / São nossas coisas, são coisas nossas
(Samba, empty pockets and other
bossas
/ Are our specialties, are our specialties). In the forties, the guitarist Garoto headed a group called Clube da Bossa (Bossa Club), which included his friend, songwriter Valzinho. Long after the expression
bossa nova
was already in use and practically included in dictionary listings, columnist Sérgio Porto (for a long time, a fierce adversary of the new music) casually attributed himself as its
adoptive parent, alleging to have heard it from a shoeshine boy commenting on his laceless shoes—”Bossa nova, eh, doctor?”—and to have begun to use the expression himself.

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.