Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World (62 page)

Jair Rodrigues wasn’t what you’d call a modern singer. His personal preferences were more for
música sertaneja
(Brazilian country music) than for what was starting to be called MPB (
Música Popular Brasileira
). As far as bossa nova went, therefore, he was a total virgin. Some of the songs in
the show’s repertoire bothered him, like “Menino das laranjas” (The Little Orange Seller), written by Théo de Barros, and “Marcha da quarta-feira de cinzas” (Ash Wednesday
Marcha
), by Carlinhos Lyra and Vinícius. “These songs sound very communist,” he remarked.

His concern must have revolved around the
no entanto
(nevertheless) in the line
“E no entanto, é preciso cantar”
(But nevertheless, we need to sing) in Lyra’s song. He thought it was a reference to the military coup d’état of 1964. But they managed to convince him that it had nothing to do with it, to such an extent that, just the following year, 1966, he sang a rustic guitar
moda
, “Disparada” (Stampede), also by Théo and Geraldo Vandré, at Excélsior’s second song festival—almost certainly without realizing that he was singing what seemed, at the time, like an open exhortation to rural insurrection.

Elis Regina, Jair Rodrigues, and the Jongo Trio packed the Paramount in São Paulo on April 9, 10, and 11, 1965, with their resounding combination of bossa nova themes and traditional
sambões
, cemented by a strong jazz base accompaniment. It was MPB in the making. Walter Silva recorded the show’s opening night, and contrary to what he had previously been doing, he did not sell the tape to RGE, but to Philips, with whom Elis and Jair worked under contract. The recording, made into the album
Dois na Bossa
(Two in Bossa), became the “bestselling Brazilian music record in history” up until then, although nobody seemed to be anxious to produce the requisite figures. We know that the sale of the tape was a cash transaction: had it been done on the base of royalties for Walter Silva and the musicians, they would all have earned a lot more money. According to the double bassist Sabá, the Jongo Trio never saw so much as a penny.

The Jongo Trio were a miracle, as they would prove when they released their own album,
Jongo Trio
, with the recording company Farroupilha that same year of 1965. Nobody could have guessed that anything particularly spectacular would emerge under bossa nova skies in the trio department, since the explosion onto the scene of the Tamba Trio in the Lane, at the end of 1961, had instigated a flood of combos comprising piano, double bass, and drums.

The Tamba Trio, composed of Luizinho Eça, Bebeto, and Hélcio Milito, was not just a trio, because double bassist Bebeto also played the flute. Their first album,
Tamba Trio
, recorded with playbacks so that Bebeto could play
both instruments at the same time, was perfect—which meant that it was an instrumental record, merely dotted here and there with a few vocals by the trio on some of the tracks. On the records that followed, the voices of Luizinho, Bebeto, and Hélcio began to fight to be heard above the instruments, and none of the trio was much of a singer. Ronaldo Bôscoli, with typical bluntness, commented at the time, “If the Tamba Trio just played and Os Cariocas just sang, what a marvelous thing that would be.”

He was referring to the fact that Os Cariocas’s musical accompaniment was not up to the same standard as their fabulous vocals. To Bôscoli’s surprise, one member of Os Cariocas, Badeco, agreed with him and felt that the two groups should join forces to make a record that would be hard to beat. Besides, the two groups were both contracted at Philips. But their respective leaders (Eça, for the Tamba Trio, and Severino Filho, for Os Cariocas) weren’t interested and the idea never got off the ground. The Tamba Trio, however, almost achieved Nirvana with the record
Luiz Eça & cordas
(Luiz Eça & Strings), which was in fact the trio minus vocals, with violins masterfully arranged by Eça in their place.

The other great trio that followed onto the scene, although merely instrumental, was the Bossa Três, with Luís Carlos Vinhas on piano, Tião Neto on double bass, and Edison Machado on drums. They also made their debut in the Lane in 1962, and by the beginning of 1963 they were already in New York under contract with Sidney Frey, the owner of Audio-Fidelity and the organizer of the Carnegie Hall concert. Frey made them record a series of discs for the American market, took them on the
Andy Williams Show
on television, and featured them at the Village Vanguard, one of the hallowed jazz havens. But they missed out on other good opportunities, like playing at Birdland accompanying important people, because one of their members, Edison Machado, did not read music.

All of the pianists in the Lane, like Don Salvador, Sérgio Mendes, and Tenório Jr., and even the drummers, like Milton Banana and Edison Machado himself, eventually formed their own trios. But time would prove that, due to the number of nightclubs and recording companies ready to hire them, instrumental trios were a phenomenon particular to São Paulo. At one time, between 1963 and 1966, the following groups co-existed in the city: the Zimbo Trio; César Camargo Mariano’s Sambalanço; the trio of Walter Wanderley, whose leader played the electric keyboard instead of the piano; the trio of Pedrinho Mattar; Amílson Godoy’s Bossa Jazz; the trio of Manfredo Fest; and that of Ely Arcoverde—and those were merely the most prominent ones. There were dozens of them. Of all of them, the only one to survive into the nineties was the highly technical Zimbo Trio, formed by Amílson Godoy
and two men with more night experience than Count Dracula’s entire family line: double bassist Luís Chaves and drummer Rubinho Barsotti.

The most ephemeral trio (together for less than a year; just one record of their own) was the most exciting: the Jongo Trio. With their official lineup, pianist Cido Bianchi, double bassist Sabá, and drummer Toninho Pinheiro, they burst onto the scene in 1965 with their recordings of “Feitinha pro poeta” (Made Just for the Poet), written by Baden Powell and Lula Freire in honor of Vinicius, “Seu Chopin, desculpe” (Sorry, Mr. Chopin) by Johnny Alf, and their own “Menino das laranjas.” Their instrumentals were not only powerful and polished, but their vocals were also very bold, because Sabá, brother of Zimbo’s Luís Chaves and former accomplice of Johnny Alf at the Baiúca, had been a member of vocal ensembles in the state of Pará at the beginning of the fifties. During that entire year, the Jongo Trio caused long lines to form when they were billed to participate in bossa nova shows at theaters, universities, and clubs, and their album,
Jongo Trio
, was even a hit on Rio radio, which had never had much patience for São Paulo’s heavily jazz-influenced trios.

The bossa nova trios had their moment of glory, and contributed instrumental music the likes of which had never before been heard in Brazil, a country that was traditionally deaf to anything with no vocals. The musicians, in turn, never had more opportunities for work. But this phase passed by quickly because the trios drained the public’s interest, multiplying like rabbits and repeating styles—and because, around 1966, the younger market was being definitively swallowed up by something called ye-ye-ye—the Brazilian rock ‘n’ roll.

W
ith the money he earned from the
Getz/Gilberto
album when it was finally released in July 1964, Stan Getz bought a home in Irvington, New York, that had belonged to Frances Gershwin, sister of the late George. It was a
Gone With the Wind
–style mansion with twenty-three rooms and white two-story columns—all it was missing was its very own Scarlett O’Hara. For his participation on the record, João Gilberto, as co-star, received $23,000 in the first part of the year and a coveted pair of Grammys for his vocals and guitar playing—two statuettes that he stored in a closet and lost when he moved and left the closet behind. Astrud Gilberto, who sang “Garota de Ipanema” in English and was responsible for the record’s international success, earned what the American musicians’ syndicate paid for a single night of work: $120. Great, don’t you think?

But when the record came out, Getz took Astrud, who had already separated from João Gilberto, on a tour of the United States and the United Kingdom, performing great live versions of “The Girl from Ipanema,” “Corcovado” (now well known as “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars”), “Samba de uma nota só” (One Note Samba), “Eu e você” (Me and You), by Carlinhos Lyra and Vinícius de Moraes, “Telefone” (Telephone), by Menescal and Bôscoli, and other new songs that Astrud brought with her from a trip to Rio. During one of the shows, at the Café a Go-Go in Greenwich Village in mid-August, Astrud passed the test of performing in front of New York audience—and the applause she received guaranteed her a career in the United States. One of their first records was made there (
Getz Au Go Go, featuring Astrud Gilberto
), but it was still a Getz record. Creed Taylor, of Verve, took it upon himself to ensure that she recorded her own
The Astrud Gilberto Album
next, and from that point on, she surpassed Dick Farney’s achievement fifteen years earlier: she carved out a niche for herself in the American market singing in both English and Portuguese. Of course, she wasn’t quite as successful as her husband, João Gilberto, who carved out his own niche doing things his way, merely singing when and wherever he felt like it—and in Portuguese.

Another Brazilian girl, Miúcha Buarque de Holanda, joined João Gilberto in New York in February 1964. She had met him in Paris at the end of the previous year, during a show by the Chilean Violeta Parra at the La Candelária nightclub in the Quartier Latin. (She never wholly understood what on earth
he
was doing at a Violeta Parra show.) Miúcha was giving an impromptu performance at the nightclub when a friend of hers, an Argentine named Fernando, told her that there was someone there who wanted to meet her. She listened to him halfheartedly, because the last person that Fernando had tried to introduce her to was an Arab sheik who dealt in white slave trafficking. Miúcha saw the small Brazilian who was watching the show (not from the audience, but through a window in the lobby) and decided to talk to him
without even knowing his name. (“No names,” João Gilberto had told Fernando.) But even in the darkness of the nightclub, she recognized the unmistakable voice of João Gilberto—her idol ever since “Chega de saudade.”

Months later, she accepted an invitation from João to be his secretary in New York, and together they moved into an apartment in Central Park West on 72nd Street, facing the Dakota building. (It was the first of at least eight addresses they had, between the United States and Mexico, in the seven years she lived with him there.) But money was tight, because
Getz/Gilberto
had still not come out and they weren’t even sure if it would any day soon. João Gilberto tried to sell his share in the album to Verve, but the recording company wasn’t interested. So Miúcha went to work as a typist for a law firm in Manhattan, without knowing much English or even how to type. Months later, when the lawyers noticed her shortcomings and fired her,
Getz/Gilberto
finally came out and things got better.

Not much so for João Gilberto, though, because the Parisian acupuncturist hadn’t managed to cure his muscular problem, and he was now being treated by three American doctors, Drs. John Utereker, Saul Goldfarb, and Guilholm Bloch—practically an entire medical council. The council diagnosed slight atrophy in his right shoulder, and prescribed ultrasound treatments. For months, João underwent treatment at the doctors’ office, until he finally decided to buy the equipment the doctors used himself, and carry out his treatments at home over the years that followed. But he continued to think there was something wrong with his hand and, as a supplement to the treatments, he would spend a number of hours every day soaking his hand in a can of brine.

During João Gilberto’s entire first American phase, from 1963 to 1969, Brazil was more occupied with the funny stories about him in his self-imposed exile than in knowing that, practically every time he stepped onto a stage abroad, he conquered the audience’s affinities for bossa nova and Brazilian music forever. It was that way, for example, on the tour he did with Stan Getz to Canada that same year, 1964, before
Getz/Gilberto
was released, and at the concert they gave at the end of the year at Carnegie Hall, which resulted in the
Getz/Gilberto #2
album. It was also that way at his performances in several New York clubs, like the Village Vanguard, the Village Gate, and the Bottom Line; and when he was sometimes billed with pianist Bill Evans or trumpet player Art Farmer, in cities like Boston, Washington, and Los Angeles.