The Brazil Travel Site

A Brief History of Bossa Nova

When you look back on it, it seems almost inevitable that something important was to come from Rio de Janeiro in the 1950s. Brazil was enjoying a time of prosperity and cultural growth under the presidency of Juscelino Kubitschek. Carmen Miranda had opened the doors to Hollywood and gotten the world to take notice of the big South American country and its music. Samba was sweeping the country as a popular music and dance form and Copacabana was famous for its casinos and high-rolling jet set.

Rio de Janeiro was full of nightclubs for all classes of people and musical tastes. American music scouts setup offices in town to help keep their ears to the music. Among the talent working these clubs went the likes of Antonio Calos Jobim and Joao Gilberto — acquaintences at the time, although not exactly friends. Lena Horne, Sarah Vaughan, and Nat King Kole were among the musical presentations at the Copacabana Palace in those days.

Little Joao

Joao Gilberto was the son of a wealthy businessman from northern Bahia. His father played the sax and mandolin and was founder of his town’s marching band. Joao got his first guitar at 14 and soon dropped out of school, formed a band, and began playing at parties and festivals in his home town of Juazeiro. When his father learned that little Joao was not planning to continue his schooling but wanted instead to become a musician (synonymous with being a bum in those days) he cut off all financial support to his son. So began Gilberto’s long history of leeching off of others for support. Over the next 12 years, he would move from one handout to another, staying as long as anyone would support him, until eventually, practically nobody did. To make matters worse, Joao was rather fond of getting high on marijuana and sitting around playing his guitar and singing.

Eu vim da Bahia cantar
I came from Bahia to sing
Eu vim da Bahia contar
I came from Bahia to tell my story
Eu vim da Bahia, mas um dia eu volto para la
I came from Bahia, but one day I’ll return there

Gilberto arrived in Rio with a government job set up for him by his family and a singing gig in a quartet called Garotos da Lua (Boys of the Moon), which played at various clubs in Rio and Petropolis. He worked in the Cinelandia area, ironically, where all the popular music stores were located. Most of his time was spent in the stores and not at his desk. A year later, the Garotos da Lua got a record deal but on the day of the recording session, Gilberto was a no-show. He left the band the next day, after his band humiliated him for the no-show in front of the music store (where some of the band members worked). He was more interested in playing solo anyway and often promoted himself as a solo act on the band’s time. Soon after leaving the band, Gilberto was fired from his job for not even pretending to show up to work.

But Gilberto’s great singing voice, guitar playing, and charming personality landed him plenty of contacts and gigs and he spent the next few years scraping by on radio spots, ad jingles, and sit-ins for bands. As the story goes, one day he was kicked out of yet another friend’s house and made his way to Jobim’s place, then only an acquaintance from the club circuit. When he knocked on the door, Jobim’s wife answered with the message, “Tom (Jobim) told me to tell you that he is not home.” Gilberto later left Rio to play in Porto Alegre with some moderate success, but that success never quite translated to Rio de Janeiro and he left again to spend time with his sister in Diamantina, Minas Gerais. It’s said that he hardly left her house, but spent every waking hour sitting and playing the guitar.

Antonio Brasileiro

Meanwhile, Tom Jobim, the boy from Ipanema, had married young (at age 22) and was practically the opposite of Gilberto, concerned mostly with his domestic responsibilities and paying the rent. He worked as a pianist at night in any gig that would pay, from dive bars to the Copacabana Palace. He played frequently at the clubs on Beco das Garrafas (Bottle Alley), so called because residents threw bottles from the windows at the patrons as they made their way into the clubs. The alley was famous for its high class prostitutes, jazz and swing music, and bohemian clientele. It was known by the musicians as Beco Joga Chave Meu Amor (Throw Your Keys My Love Alley). Jobim had acquired a decent amount of local recognition as a songwriter and piano player. He connected with poet and song writer Vinicius de Morais, a government official who was to become his song writing partner and later ambassador to France. By the time Gilberto returned to Rio, Jobim had already achieved quite a bit of success as a musician and song writer.

Collaboration

Gilberto returned a bit more disciplined and determined and his playing had changed a matured. His great singing and playing got him into professional gigs and recording sessions and his unique guitar style attracted some attention. People said it was like Samba without the tambourines. One day, an important producer gave him an address on a piece of paper and told him to get in touch with this person to do some collaboration. The name on the paper was Tom Jobim. Their first recording together was Jobim’s Chega de Saldade with Gilberto’s Bim Bom on the B side. Slow to gather momentum in Brazil, the record got the attention of American scouts and within a year, Gilberto and Jobim were being produced in the United States. Gilberto’s first royalty check from Verve/Polygram Records was around US$25,000 for his collaboration with Stan Getz.

Information cited from Chega de Saldade: a historia e as historias da Bossa Nova, by Ruy Castro, Sao Paulo, 1990.

The Souring Tuiuiu (Jaburu Stork), South America’s Largest Wingspan

The Jaburu Stork, or Tuiuiu (too-yoo-YOO) as it’s known locally, is somewhat ungainly and awkward on the ground. It stands about four feet tall on one leg as it pokes its 16-inch, sharply pointed beak into the ponds and lakes of the Pantanal in search of mollusks, fish, frogs, and other amphibians. Sometimes it even snatches a baby crocodile. If predators get too close (including humans on photo safaris), an entire group of these giant birds takes to the air in an instant. They circle around and land again not far away to continue their fishing activities. In the air, the Tuiuiu (scientific name: Jabiru mycteria) is a high-flyer, graceful and elegant. With its eight-foot wingspan, it is among the largest birds of the western hemisphere and is found from Mexico to Argentina, east of the Andes.

The Tuiuiu is mosly black and white: its white body is offset by a black head and neck. Between these two colors is a strip of bright red at the base of its neck. Its red and black neck is not colored by feathers; rather, these are the colors of its naked skin, which stretches to accommodate the great quantities of small animals and fish that pass down its gullet. The Tuiuiu lives in groups, but generally mates for life, creating from one to three chicks each season from late July to September. It creates large nests out of interlaced sticks in the tops of tall trees and even goes back to the same nest each season to remodel and expand it.

It’s easy to spot Tuiuiu in the Pantanal during their mating and incubation period, which corresponds to the dry season in the Pantanal. Often, they stand up in their nests, keeping a lookout or hang around in groups near small ponds and lakes. They are rather sensitive and don’t let visitors get too close, so be sure to bring a good pair of binoculars to get an up-close look.

Intimately Bound Up with Brazil, a Memoir

by Bernard James
“We were somewhere in that crowd. Marta Rocha was Miss Brazil. The Carnaval was not as fully organized as it is today.”
 
 
I was born in St.Louis in the Creole enclave called the Ville. My grandfather had been the honorary mayor of the Ville. My grandfather died before I was born. There were many people that called my grandfather “Uncle John” who were not related to us by blood. I was raised in Chicago and went to school there. We left the Ville when I was eight years old and never looked back. While in the Ville I spoke French and Spanish freely and was discouraged from speaking Creole. That is why today I am slow in Creole; although in New Orleans and vicinity (Houma) many people open up conversations with me in Creole, I switch as fast as I can to French.

When I went back to Harvard last April I did the same thing. The cab drivers in Cambridge are mostly Haitian: I can understand their Creole but I respond in French. Downtown on Market Street In San Francisco, people who I have never seen me before open up a conversation with me in French. It happens almost every time and has been some what of a joke. I lost my wallet one time with five hundred dollars in it. It was returned to me by a French speaking Swiss University girl. When she returned to Geneva I sent her a purse in gratitude. None of our conversation was in English. I don’t know why this happens, since I do not wear the French flag on my sleeve.

One of the reasons that my father left the Ville, I later learned, was because the Ku Klux Klan imposed a secondary boycott and he could not get food or supplies for his restaurants. We landed within walking distance of the University of Chicago, which had a tremendous influence on all our lives. My oldest sister graduated from there in 1942 or earlier. Woodlawn is next to Hyde Park; my brother Andrew is now a neighbor of Obama and Rahm Emmauel.

In Chicago we were visited by many foreign students, among them, Mario Wagner Cunha from an elite Brazilian family. Papa Doc got his medical degree there. We had many Haitian visitors and kept open house of sorts. Cooking is one of my hobbies. My father had ten children; how he managed to maintain a haute cuisine in St. Louis and Chicago is a still a mystery to me. It takes twelve hours to make French pastry the way we made it. I do not make crepes with Grand Marnier every day. We traveled; we must have been fairly comfortable. At least up to the Depression.

I went to school with Luis Labouriaux, a Carioca of Creole-French descent. Later on we were in the graduate school at Michigan together. We became as close as brothers. When I went to Rio, Dona Judith formalized what was already extant. Luis knew her before she knew herself. Luis would have been her godfather except that he did not take Catholicism seriously. Their custom is transitive. Whenever my brother Andrew came to Rio with me, he was treated the same way. Dona Judith tried to marry him off too. She regarded my children as her grandchildren.

Some things sink in on me perhaps later than they should. Those students at the University of Chicago at that time came through what I now call an elite filter. To put it another way, there were no poverty stricken peasants running up and down the Midway. When Dona Judith introduced me into her circle, I did not realize that it was “the circle!” At her coming out party (quinceanera) she and her sister were introduced to the emperor. Joe Sixpack does not usually find himself in the presence of an emperor. (I knew that Diva was a Brandao; I did not realize it was the Brandao.) One does not casually call on an Archbishop (her uncle) as I did. She named her second son Giordano Bruno in defiance of the Church. Giordano did not fare as well as Galileo; he was burned at the stake for his beliefs.

For a long time after the war I struggled with raising my family either here or in Brazil. I wanted to spare them American racial prejudice. I have a passport with all my children on it. That decision was made for me when the military took over in Brazil. I stayed here and sent them through the American school system. You can blame me for the results. I was overjoyed when Brazil returned to democracy. I was in Sao Paulo in the crowd on that very day! I did not overtly become a Lusophile; I was dragged into it by events. I was prepared to send my sons to Rio rather than put up with the Vietnam War draft.

We are now more than ever intimately bound up with Brazil; it is in the warp and woof of our existence.

AXE
Bernard