Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World - Softcover

Castro, Ruy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1556524943 ISBN 13: 9781556524943

Publisher: Chicago Review Press, 2003

Synopsis

Bossa nova is one of the most popular musical genres in the world. Songs such as “The Girl from Ipanema” (the fifth most frequently played song in the world), “The Waters of March,” and “Desafinado” are known around the world. Bossa Nova—a number-one bestseller when originally published in Brazil as Chega de saudade—is a definitive history of this seductive music. Based on extensive interviews with Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, and all the major musicians and their friends, Bossa Nova explains how a handful of Rio de Janeiro teenagers changed the face of popular culture around the world. Now, in this outstanding translation, the full flavor of Ruy Castro’s wisecracking, chatty Portuguese comes through in a feast of detail. Along the way he introduces a cast of unforgettable characters who turned Gilberto’s singular vision into the sound of a generation.

About this title

About the Author

Ruy Castro grew up in Rio to the sound of bossa nova. He has been a staff writer, reporter, and editor for more than half a dozen major Brazilian magazines and newspapers. He lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

From Publishers Weekly

For North American audiences, bossa nova was "a brief Brazilian seduction" before the British invasion of the 1960s, when it fell from the world stage into the background, where it continues to appeal. But in Brazil, bossa nova meant an innovative new soundAa "serenely syncretic" take on sambaAto accompany the country's other modernizations. A bestseller in Brazil, Castro's book might lack some context for readers here. But it is an energetic journalistic history with a lively cast of characters, set mostly in the beachside neighborhoods and nightclubs of Rio de Janeiro. Castro outlines the careers of, among others, pioneers Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto. Gilberto has always cut a curious figure: a poetic, idiosyncratic, charming young man, he became in later years a productive, exacting recluse. Enumerating poets, diplomats and critics who wrote music or lyrics, the narrative depicts a music-loving societyAthe wide-reaching R dio Nacional was likely "the largest rhythmical democracy in the world"Athat incubated bossa nova throughout its inceptionAin the music of Frank Sinatra and Stan KentonAand evolution during the composition of Black Orpheus. Bossa nova was finally released, full-fledged, in the instant classic "Chega de saudade" (the Brazilian title of the book, which translates as "no more blues"), and made its notable U.S. debut at Carnegie Hall in 1962. Having interviewed everyone available, Castro has at his fingertips elemental details, like the moment Billy Blanco conjured up a musical phrase on a bus, then ran into a bar and, over the din, shouted his creation to his collaborator Jobim, marking the birth of the song "Sinfonia do Rio de Janeiro." Photos.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Chicago Review Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1556524943
• ISBN 13: 9781556524943
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 400