Sorry, guys, going out on a Springsteen free limb here, eager to see if there is any love for the bossa. To folk of a certain age, myself included, that can open up a vista over one of the most over-exposed and ubiquitous songs of the last century, the cloying Girl From Ipanema, but don't go, stick around. It isn't actually a bad song, you've just heard it too many times.
The Girl from Ipanema/Amy Winehouse
Anyway, this isn't about the song, it's about the style. Arguably no more than a variation on the Brazilian life-source, the samba, it swept in on a wave of innovation in the late 1950's, a condensation of the intrinsic rhythmic shuffle to the minimal, buoyed by off kilter chords and progressions, all syncopated to the max. The splendidly named Milton Banana was probably the originator, the drummer/percussionist for Joao Gilberto. Gilberto's Chega de Saudade (1958) was the first record recognised within this new form, the style then breaking in the film, Black Narcissus, a year later.
Manhā de Carneval (from Black Narcissus)/Elizete Cardoso
That's about as far down that historical alley I want to go, even bypassing the superb contributions to the genre gifted by celebrated saxman Stan Getz, who blows the breathiest whisper that instrument can manage and still be audible. A glorious tone. Because I've got you here to catch what has been happening to the style since the 60s. The enthusiasm actually fell away in the homelands, the breezy music sitting uncomfortably with the political frictions occurring in Brazil, even if every jazzer and his dog in the US was tearing Ipanema to shreds in supper clubs and hotel lobbies across the nation. As latin rhythms determined a more streetwise and funky uplift, courtesy Carlos Santana, so the cool jazz lite of the 'nova was on the fade.
Wild Horses/Karen Souza
It was actually my love for cover versions, an unceasing quest of mine these past two or three decades, that lead me back to Bossanova, let alone many another arcane and forgotten style. The Rolling Stones, always a favourite band of mine, have attracted versions across the musical map, encompassing blues, reggae and zydeco, all these having been avidly devoured. So when I discovered a label, PMB, originally based in Argentina, seemingly hellbent of exploiting the emergent love for chilled beats, and morphing this with the sounds and style of Bossanova, I was made up. As well as the Stones, there are also volumes devoted to Bob Marley, the Ramones and Madonna, the bandwagon then drifting to other labels, quick to produce similar Beatles renditions. OK, not all of this is good and some is a good deal even less than good, but, when it hits base, it is perfect. Well worth a punt, as easy to pick up cheap second hand copies.
Love Will Tear Us Apart/Nouvelle Vague
Meanwhile, over in France, Oliver Libaux and Marc Collin were having similar revelations, as they set up the band/collective Nouvelle Vague, which translates roughly both as New Wave, which is one of the possible translations also for Bossa Nova. Since 2004 they have produced a sizeable body of work, largely slightly kitschy covers of New Wave artists in the anglophone sense of the word. And, yes, I have most of their work too. But surely the style should be more than for smart arse copyists?
Essa Moça Tá Diferente/Bossacucanova
I'm afraid, as tends to happen, the worm hole of bossa covers led me to new artists and new material. Bossacucanova are amongst those who consider the format still keeping alive, and have injected a little more electronica to sit alongside. I can't say it grabs me as much as I hoped, so it is gratifying to round this piece off with something that really does bestride the decades, managing to keep the delicate angularity of the original songs, with a heft of 21st century credibility. Unsurprising, therefore, to realise she is second generation Bossa. Her father was Joao Gilberto, who wrote and sang the original Girl From Ipanema. Tanto Tempo was her big breakthrough album in 2000, and I can thoroughly commend it. But I had thought her a spent force, until I learnt of Agora, an album that came out during lockdown, in 2020, and which rapidly became one of my records of that year.
Or Waters of March, the english translation of what has been called the all-time best Brazilian song, in a 2001 poll. Written by arguably the best and certainly the best-known of Brazilian composers, the king of Bossa Nova, Antonio Carlos ('Tom') Jobim, in 1972, it has sustained myriad versions over the years since. Unusually, both the portuguese of the original and it's translation were both written by Jobim. Bossa Nova seemed, in my youth, inescapably naff and forever attached to cheesy black and white travelogues. More recently it has seemed to attain a revisioned renaissance and sits well alongside other latin dance and music forms, thanks in part to the dance music attuned stylings of bands such as Bossacucanova, the translation of which even I can work out.
It was Jobim's stepfather who encouraged his playing, after the he and his mother moved to Ipanema, yes that one, starting his nascent career playing in clubs and bars. Although now deemed to side most closely with jazz, in fact early influences and passions were derived from the classical field. Already big in Brazil, courtesy his writing partnership with Vinicius de Moraes, a celebrated poet, his wider breakthrough came with, in 1963, his collaborations with Stan Getz and the husband and wife team of Joao and Astrid Gilberto, including that song from Ipanema. Writing most of the music over the two volumes of Getz/Gilberto ensured worldwide recognition and many awards. The bossanova craze was in full swaying swing.
Aguas de Marco, as a song, has had a fascinating history, starting life as the 70s brazilian equivalent of a cover disc: a free and probably flimsy vinyl distributed with O Pasquim, a magazine of the day. Thereafter it was picked up by Elis Regina, later to work closely and to collaborate with Jobim, appearing on her 1972 debut. Jobim himself didn't officially release his own version until a year later, with the additional english lyric now attached to the verses in portuguese. This was then reprised, by both of them, another year later, on the seminal 1974 album Elis and Tom. (See top clip above.) Since then there have been a flood of versions from artists as varied as Frank Sinatra, Art Garfunkel and David Byrne. Unarguably now a standard, it was also purloined by advertisers, no doubt for a fat fee, but never, for me, the real thing.
So what are the waters of march? March is the rainiest month in Rio, and the words, more a tone poem of images than any narrative, are said to represent the torrents of water flowing down the steep hillsides of the city, flooding the gutters with all manner of debris. I encourage you to sift through the floodwater of what can so often be so much supper club and hotel lobby flotsam and jetsam, looking for the class of what this much maligned music style has to offer. Tom Jobim will always rise to the top.
Such a hard choice this time around, deciding what to leave out…I had to go with four, 'cuz three wasn't going to be nearly enough. But even though I go to more live performances of jazz guitarists, I myself played jazz sax back in the day, so I've got a ton of favorites to pick from.
First off is a song I used to play by Japanese saxophone giant, Sadao Watanabe. He's a bit of a hybrid, in a way, since he grew popular during the rise of smooth jazz (which in some circles is a sort of curse word). And yes, some of his stuff is pretty, well, smooth. On the other hand, he's no Kenny G: for example, he came out with a great album of Charlie Parker tunes in the 80's that's well worth buying. The song I'm sharing's got two other great talents as well in keyboardist Dave Grusin and guitarist Lee Ritenour (I knew I could sneak them in). It's from 1978's California Shower.
Next is another from my (very limited) repertoire. It's Stan Getz with a cover of Antonio Carlos Jobim's Desafinado, released in 1962, and it helped propagate the bossa nova enthusiasm in America. It features Charlie Byrd on guitar.
Sonny Rollins and guitarist Jim Hall together create an expressive cover of Billie Holiday's God Bless the Child from his best album, The Bridge, also released in 1962.
Finally, and probably best, is the sax legend unto himself: the great John Coltrane. Picking just one song was hardest of all. I nearly went with Naima, which is probably my favorite song, but I thought his 1960 classic, Giant Steps, might demonstrate what made his style unique.
I mourn that I can't share other favorite sax players like Cannonball Adderley, Gato Barbieri, Paul Desmond, Dexter Gordon, Eddie Harris, Charles Lloyd, Charlie Parker, Art Pepper, Houston Person, Dewey Redman and his son Joshua Redman, David Sanborn, Wayne Shorter, Zoot Sims, Grover Washington, Jr., or Sonny Stitt.
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