They Shot the Piano Player, the Bossa Animated Doc

It is a Bossa Nova mystery that technically remains unresolved, even though it is pretty clear what happened. Francisco Tenorio Jr. (who was simply billed as Tenorio Jr.) could have been the great piano improvisor of the Bossa Nova movement, even though a lot more bop came out in his solos than most of his contemporaries. Unfortunately, he disappeared off the streets of Buenos Aires when he went out looking for cigarettes or a sandwich (stories vary slightly in this respect). That was on the eve of the military coup and he looked like a scruffy musician, because he was. Years later, fictional magazine writer Jeff Harris sets out to tell his story in Fernando Trueba & Javier Mariscal’s animated hybrid documentary They Shot the Piano Player, which opens Friday in New York.

It all started with a magazine article about Bossa Nova. Would it be fair to ask someone to sum up punk rock in 2,500 words, because Bossa Nova would be even harder. Regardless, it was apparently all new to New Yorker readers. Indeed, the article is such a hit, Jessica offers him a contract to expand it into a book (by the way, if there are any interested editors out there, I’m available and kinda sorta speak Portuguese). Soon thereafter, Harris is back in Brasil, conducting interviews with Bossa Nova legends, arranged by his old friend, Joao.

However, Harris soon falls into a Tenorio Jr. wormhole, having discovered the pianist’s only session as a leader. Of course, Joao enables him, helping secure interviews with Tenorio’s widow and close musical collaborators. Inevitably, the trail leads him to Argentina, where the government’s human rights commission is always more than happy to discuss the Dirty War.

In Chico & Rita, Trueba exposed the oppression of Castro’s Cuba, so maybe it is only fair he takes aim at the Brazilian and Argentine military coups this time around. Both films look and sound incredibly cool, because they combine jazz and animation. They also have one happy constant: the late, amazingly great Bebo Valdez, who appears (animated) as himself, playing one of Tenorio’s tunes.

In fact, the music might even be better in They Shot the Piano Player. We hear classic selections from Joao Gilberto, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Vinicius de Moraes, and, obviously, Tenorio. Plus, there are rotoscoped (live action translated into animation) interviews with the likes of Chico Buarque, Joao Donato, Edu Lobo, and Milton Nascimento. Yet, perhaps the most emotionally resonant segment features Bud Shank (who sold an awful lot of collaborations with Brazilian musicians in the 1960s, but never truly got the recognition he deserves), who apparently learned Tenorio’s tragic fate during the interview.

Elis & Tom: The Artists and the Recording

To a large degree, Antonio Carlos “Tom” Jobim’s career was defined by collaborations: albums recorded with Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, Frank Sinatra, Edu Lobo, and Miucha as well as songs co-written with lyricist Vinicius de Moraes. One of his greatest collaborations nearly didn’t happen, but fortunately, there was a meeting of minds and hearts that resulted in an absolutely classic album. Filmmakers Jom Tob Azulay & Roberto de Oliveira explain the respective career arcs of Elis Regina and how they worked together on their eponymous Bossa Nova record in Elis & Tom, which releases today in Los Angeles.

It all started with record label executive Andre Midani, who wanted to do something special for Regina’s ten-year professional anniversary. At that time, she was far more commercial in Brasil than Jobim (thanks to her MPB records), but he was still Jobim, a worldwide jazz superstar and godfather of the Bossa Nova movement.

Initially, Regina and Midani merely intended Jobim to be a “special guest” on an album of his songs, but that is not how Tom Jobim rolled, Instead, started exerting far more control over their sessions than Regina expected. She nearly abandoned whole project, as her surviving colleagues explain in detail. Happily, for listeners, Regina and Jobim made peace with each other and Jobim made peace with Regina’s arranger, Cesar Camargo Mariano.

The film begins and ends with “Waters of March,” which seems fitting. Probably no more inscrutable song was ever penned, yet it is endlessly evocative of imagery and memories. Of course, Regina and Jobim caress it perfectly.

Azulay and de Oliveira incorporate restored 16mm footage of the rehearsals and recording sessions that are often revelatory. In some cases, the rehearsals might be even better than the final product. Despite being looser and rougher, they have that in-the-moment spark, reflecting Jobim’s jazz grounding.

Sergio Mendes in the Key of Joy

Sergio Mendes probably holds the bossa nova sales record for 8-track tapes. He sold tons of crossover bossa records for A&M from the mid-1960s to the early-1970s. For most Americans, his “Mas Que Nada” is the definitive version (sorry Jorge Ben Jor), but his vocal arrangements often got him tagged with labels like “lounge” or “easy listening.” Nevertheless, he kept selling. The perennially popular musician takes stock of his life and career in John Scheinfeld’s documentary, Sergio Mendes in the Key of Joy, which has a special screening-reception this Thursday to benefit the Sonoma Independent Film Festival.

Despite achieving his international fame in the U.S., Mendes was still enough of a Brazilian icon to work with Pele scoring the football legend’s 1977 documentary. He was also jazz enough to recruit Gerry Mulligan to play on it. Jazz fans might wish Scheinfeld discussed those original sessions more, but most Brazilians will be more interested in his reunion with Pele, which is captured in the film.

Originally in Brazil, Mendes was mentored by Tom Jobim, but he left to pursue a musical career in the USA, as a way to escape the stifling climate under the military regime. His Brasil ’65 band sounded more like the classic bossa artists, but it had trouble catching on. However, the soft, warm vocals of Brasil ’66 were an immediate hit for A&M. The label owner-producer Herb Alpert was also quite interested in Brasil ‘66’s vocalist, Lani Hall (his future wife). Much like Mendes features prominently in Mr. A & Mr. M: The Story of A&M Records, Alpert and Hall are logically heard from throughout Key of Joy.

Scheinfeld does a nice job covering the greatest hits of Mendes’s career and the ups-and-downs of his life. The last half-hour or so is largely dominated by Mendes’s collaborations with the likes of Will.i.am, Common, and John Legend, but unlike documentary rip-offs of Tony Bennett’s Duets, these sessions each came about organically, in very different contexts, rather than as a contrived gimmick to bestow new commerciality on an older artist.

Music + Film Brazil ’20: Beyond Ipanema

For a while, every desperate jazz A&R exec would force their artists to record a “with strings” album. Then the Bossa Nova record became the gimmick of choice. However, that opened up plenty of opportunities for Brazilian musicians and resulted in some truly classic records. The Brazilian Bossa wave helped revitalize jazz’s commercial viability, at least to an extent. Somewhat logically, it is through a Bossa Nova prism that Americans view Brazilian music (even non-jazz fans). Not surprisingly, Bossa anchors directors Guto Barra & Beco Dranoff’s survey of Brazilian music, as seen from abroad, but they widen the perspective to include other styles and genres during Beyond Ipanema, which screens for free today, as part of Cinema Tropical’s online 2020 edition of Music + Film: Brazil.

One of the coolest things about Beyond is the credit it bestows Carmen Miranda, for making it big in Hollywood, while staying true to her Brazilian roots. For a time, she was the highest compensated woman in America, so she had the clout to insist on real-deal samba and Portuguese lyrics in her studio films. It is indeed refreshing to see the likes of Caetano Veloso remind us of who she really is, correcting the media’s corny image of her.

Of course, a good deal of Beyond focuses on Bossa Nova, chronicling touchstone events, like the release of Black Orpheus and its smash hit soundtrack album, as well as the chaotic but groundbreaking 1962 Carnegie Hall all-star concert. Joao Gilberto is not inappropriately identified as the Bossa Nova pioneer, but viewers also hear from Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal, and Oscar Castro Neves. We also get commentary from Bud Shank and Clare Fischer, legit jazz musicians who recorded legit Bossa Nova albums.

Strangely, Tropicalia and MPB are rather cursorily discussed, but Gilberto Gil and Marcos Valle have some screen time. Os Mutantes also get their due representing rock and funk. Many Brazilian music fans will be surprised how much time is granted to the sampling of Brazilian music, but it makes sense for Bebel Gilberto to serve as the face of this section.

This is Bossa Nova: Listen to the Founders

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.

This is a terrific film that gives viewers many complete performances and a considerable insight into the music we hear. Lyra and Menescal are perfect hosts. They exude laidback charm and have all the credibility in the world. Cinematographer Guy Gonçalves makes it all look pleasantly bright and inviting. It is really the perfect film for a warm summer’s night on the beach or a winter in New York City. Absolutely charming and gently infectious, This is Bossa Nova is indeed highly recommended when it opens this Friday (1/1) in New York at the Cinema Village.

Premiere Brazil: Out of Tune

While the Bossa Nova rhythm swung gently and politely, there was a fair amount of turmoil in Brazil during its heyday. Over the same period, there is also a fair amount of personal drama for Os Desafinados, the fictional Bossa band portrayed in Walter Lima, Jr.’s film of the same name, translated in English as Out of Tune (trailer here), which recently opened MoMA’s annual Premiere Brazil series.

Told in Eddie and the Cruisers style flashbacks, the surviving members of Os Desafinados look back on their almost glory years as their old filmmaker friend shoots a tribute to Glória, the band’s sometime vocalist and flashpoint for jealous sexual tensions. In this case, Yoko Ono was the Girl from Ipanema.

As Tune opens, the band is determined to land a spot in the historic Carnegie Hall concert that featured Bossa Nova greats like Tom Jobim and Luiz Bonfá. Although they nail the audition, four guys without a female vocalist are not considered sexy enough for the show, but they do sell a tune to the American promoter. This is encouragement enough for them to fly off to New York on spec, where they do indeed find their vocalist, Glória, a Brazilian expat, who opens her apartment up to Fab Four and Dico the filmmaker.

Joaquim meet-cutes Glória in Central Park, joining in with her as she practices the sounds of home on her flute (cheesy, but there’s certainly been worse offenders). It’s the early 1960’s, so she takes the whole band into her home and Joachim into her bed. The only problem with their idyllic arrangement is Luiza, the loyal (and very pregnant) girlfriend waiting for Joachim back in Brazil.

Though unaccustomed to New York weather, the band hits the City hard, sitting in at the Village Vanguard. (It looks like they were able to film the Vanguard’s famous red door and awning, but not inside the famous club.) Throughout the film, Wagner Tiso’s soundtrack perfectly captures the spirit of the time. Given the band’s name one would expect to hear a good deal of Jobim, and indeed they play classics like “Meditação” and of course “Desafinado.”

However, when it comes to melodrama, Tune is generous to a fault. While the characters of Joachim and Glória have some fine musical moments, the charms of all three sides of the romantic triangle are frankly suspect, which is kind of a drawback to the film. Jair Oliveira as the bassist Geraldo probably comes across as the member of Os Desafinados who would be easiest to hang with. Conversely, Rodrigo Santoro’s petulant Joachim is real hard to invest in emotionally.

At least the production design of Tune is absolutely perfect, from the artfully produced musical scenes to the hopefully intentionally hilarious clips of the leftist protest film Dico smuggles out of Brazil to the Moscow Film Festival. Despite the melodrama of its annoying characters, Tune is a breezy, entertaining film confirmed Bossa fans should get a kick out of. It screens again at MoMA Sunday the 27th.