Bossa Nova originally started as a spontaneous
synthesis of West Coast Jazz, Samba, Romantic Era classical music, and
influential Brazilian songwriters, like Ary Barroso. However, American jazz
artists adopted Bossa Nova rhythms, re-importing the music back into jazz. For
a while in the 1960s, everyone released a Bossa Nova album. Some were legit,
some were legit-ish. Two of the first generation Bossa Nova artists take
viewers back to where it all began in Paulo Thiago’s This is Bossa Nova (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.
When it comes to Bossa Nova, Carlos Lyra and Roberto
Menescal are the real deal. Essentially, they found each other and a group of
like-minded musicians when they were all exploring “modern” sounds and less
maudlin, more contemporary lyrics. A slightly older staff arranger named
Antonio Carlo “Tom” Jobim took them under his wing, helping polish some of
their compositions and writing scores of his own standards with them in mind.
Lyra and Menescal frequently visit the
campuses, flats, and concert halls where the music was incubated, often
carrying their guitars (and a tune along with them) troubadour-style. It is a
much more active, entertaining way to take a trip down memory lane. Of course,
all the greats, like Jobim, João Gilberto, and Oscar
Castro-Neves were just as great as we always thought, but Lyra and Menescal
also make a case for less prominent artists, including influential
predecessors, such as Johnny Alf (the legendary Hotel Plaza jazz pianist) and
Sinatra-esque bandleader Dick Farney.
There are a wealth of archival performances
collected in TIBN, including Jobim
performing and discussing “One Note Samba” with Gerry Mulligan (on clarinet),
as well as a bounty of original renditions from Menescal, Lyra, his daughter
Kay Lyra, Leny Andrade, Wanda Sá, João Donato, and the late great Alf. It is worth noting his piano trio
is unusual well mic’d and mixed—you can actually hear the bass. Kay and Carlos
Lyra also sound quite lovely on “Voce E Eu,” but this probably wasn’t their
first time working together.
There are some cool associations that come to
light throughout TIBN, like the influence
Barney Kessel’s sessions with Julie London had on Carlos Lyra. Thiago also
devotes sections to vocalist Nara Leão,
Vinicius de Moraes (whose play was adapted as Black Orpheus), and journalist-lyricist Ronaldo Bôscoli, whom he dubs the “Muse,” “Poet,” and “Theorist” of Bossa
Nova.
