Abuse of the Phrase "Bossa Nova" by Gringos in the Early 1960s

[JSngry]

Who needs Oscar Peterson when you have Hank Mobley?!?!?!?!

 

[Teasing the Korean]

41 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

Thanks for the reply. Although I was more thinking of the type of American bossa which neither tries being Brazilian, nor claims to be bossa nova. It almost has to be reworkings of other popular tunes, because if it's based on some real Brazilian composition it can't help being at least five percent Brazilian. 

But some things come close, like Oliver Nelson's/Hank Jones' 'Mas Que Nada', turned into a spy spoof movie soundtrack. 

I have no issues with that sort of thing conceptually, but the results will of course vary.  And I'm all for anything that sounds like a spy soundtrack, spoof or not!  

8 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Who needs Oscar Peterson when you have Hank Mobley?!?!?!?!

Some Brasilian snobs will talk about the way that US jazz players put a little bit of swing into their Bossa, but I like the push and pull when that occurs.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Teasing the Korean

[JSngry]

Snobs is snobs.

Besides, the question/statement "Who needs Oscar Peterson when you have Hank Mobley?!?!?!?!" resonates for me as a life-statement, not just a snobby jazzsubgenre quip.

Then again, I too am a snob, so take that with a grain of salt.

[Teasing the Korean]

9 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Snobs is snobs.

Besides, the question/statement "Who needs Oscar Peterson when you have Hank Mobley?!?!?!?!" resonates for me as a life-statement, not just a snobby jazzsubgenre quip.

Then again, I too am a snob, so take that with a grain of salt.

Do you mean Oscar/Hank in general or specifically with regard to Bossa?

Back to Jungle Soul, that track is called "Ca' Purange" on some pressings, and on others it is called "Ca' Purange (Jungle Soul)."  Record labels and publishers back then sometimes came up with the titles for instrumentals, so who knows.  

And I, too, am a snob, and I don't mind saying so!

Edited May 28, 2021 by Teasing the Korean

[Daniel A]

Then I will offer you something from the other side of the American bossa spectrum so that you don't have argue about  the jazz content; Dave Mackay's and Vicky Hamilton's 'Here', in 5/4, with congas and the "father of Toto" (Joe Porcaro) on drums. 

 

Edited May 28, 2021 by Daniel A

[Teasing the Korean]

4 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

Then I will offer you something from the other side of the American bossa spectrum so that you don't have argue about  the jazz content; Dave Mackay's and Vicky Hamilton's 'Here', in 5/4, with congas and the "father of Toto" (Joe Porcaro) on drums. 

 

Oh, that is killer, right up may alley, and I never heard of this!  

Does Dusty sell it? Is the whole album in this kind of a groove?

By the mid- to late-1960s, US jazz/pop/EZ artists would sometimes do these moody tracks that had elements of Bossa and "Latin," not trying to be true to any one rhythmic approach, but nevertheless coming up with compelling grooves.

I am obsessed with this track.

 

Edited May 28, 2021 by Teasing the Korean

[Daniel A]

That album is a hidden gem. I've always loved it. And for an Impulse album it's surprisingly rare. At least I have never seen it, except for the Japanese CD I got back when it came out. 

[JSngry]

They did two albums for impulse! Imo, this one is by far the best. Dave Mackay was in that post-Don Ellis Fallot orb, and their"angle was as an hipper, updated, odd-metered Jackie & Roy...it worked in every way except the didn't sell a lot (maybe any?) records. But it had/has a cult following, for obvious reasons. 

[Teasing the Korean]

3 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

That album is a hidden gem. I've always loved it. And for an Impulse album it's surprisingly rare. At least I have never seen it, except for the Japanese CD I got back when it came out. 

 

1 minute ago, JSngry said:

They did two albums for impulse! Imo, this one is by far the best. Dave Mackay was in that post-Don Ellis Fallot orb, and their"angle was as an hipper, updated, odd-metered Jackie & Roy...it worked in every way except the didn't sell a lot (maybe any?) records. But it had/has a cult following, for obvious reasons. 

Thank you both!  That track falls someplace between Jackie & Roy and Brasil '66!

[JSngry]

that whole post-ellis fallout thing...I still say it created and qualifies as a "next-gen West coast Jazz", but i don't know if anybody else views it that way. a LOT of it was on impulse, though, and maybe nobody bothered to look at it that way then. But there it is. I mean, look at who is on this record, it's pretty much a Don Ellis Alumni Band!

Ed Michel had an ear for that scene at that time and made a good number of records from it.

Joe Porcaro, btw, one helluva drummer.

[Daniel A]

30 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

 

By the mid- to late-1960s, US jazz/pop/EZ artists would sometimes do these moody tracks that had elements of Bossa and "Latin," not trying to be true to any one rhythmic approach, but nevertheless coming up with compelling grooves.

I am obsessed with this track.

 

Oh, this is fantastic! I've never heard this album. 

[Teasing the Korean]

6 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

Oh, this is fantastic! I've never heard this album. 

The whole album is good, but there is a lot of variety.  "Del's Theme" is the only track that sounds like this, and it is the money cut!

[JSngry]

George Braith...a truly interesting guy.

As it pertains to Ellis/Mackay-Hamilton...I'm sure you could do a "good" psychological study about at what point does syncopation and/or polyrhythm turn into actual odd-meter. I know Miles' 70s band had this thing where they had something like three(?) different time-signatures happening at once, and it was funky as all hell. Zappa, of course, did something similar (and more ostentatiously), and...Stravinsky, on and on. But the thinking...what gets people there, what gets them to going from feeling all these upbeats and floating ones into actually saying, ok, let's do this and NOT have it relate to 4 or 3 or 6? And then, what gets them to retrofitting it to something "bossa"?

Not for nothing, LA, studios, writers, if you can write it they can play it, and if they can play it, they can think it, if they want to.

Lalo Schifrin? Dave Brubeck? Ravi Shankar? All of the above and more? Are you already playing 3 over 4 anyway and all of a sudden the bug gets in your head to cut out the middleman of evening it out every 12 bars and just even it out to 7 on every bar? That's not an "organic" thing necessarily, but how is living in a  studio really organic? And yet...

[GA Russell]

4 hours ago, Daniel A said:

Then I will offer you something from the other side of the American bossa spectrum so that you don't have argue about  the jazz content; Dave Mackay's and Vicky Hamilton's 'Here', in 5/4, with congas and the "father of Toto" (Joe Porcaro) on drums. 

 

I have enjoyed Cal Tjader's recording of this for years!  It's on his CD Here and There.

https://www.amazon.com/Here-There-Cal-Tjader/dp/B000000XG0/

[Daniel A]

4 hours ago, GA Russell said:

I have enjoyed Cal Tjader's recording of this for years!  It's on his CD Here and There.

https://www.amazon.com/Here-There-Cal-Tjader/dp/B000000XG0/

Thanks for the information, I didn't know that!

What's interesting is that it was originally on the very first release on the Skye label, which was recorded a year and a half before Dave Mackay's own version. How did he know of this tune, which he also recorded two more times according to Mike Weil's excellent discography? 

[Big Beat Steve]

12 hours ago, Daniel A said:

Yes, shuffle bossa has something to it. And the more shuffle, the better. 

"Bossa" playing often brought out the more restrained and easy going side of Oscar Peterson, which can be a pleasant change for those who are less engaged by his double-time playing. 

I have very little of actual Bossa Nova or Bossa-ish recordings from that era but here is an album I tend to play as well for its touch of Bossa Nova here and there when I am in the mood to spin the Bossa-ish tracks from Oscar Peterson's "We Get Requests" album.

BTW, the Sacha Distel album is from way past the year of 1963 that you praise (1968, in fact).
TTK, you're famliar with that one?

Edited May 29, 2021 by Big Beat Steve

[Teasing the Korean]

5 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

I have very little of actual Bossa Nova or Bossa-ish recordings from that era but here is an album I tend to play as well for its touch of Bossa Nova here and there when I am in the mood to spin the Bossa-ish tracks from Oscar Peterson's "We Get Requests" album.

BTW, the Sacha Distel album is from way past the year of 1963 that you praise (1968, in fact).
TTK, you're famliar with that one?

I have tons of "real" Bossa from Brasil, US Bossa, and - possibly my favorite - international Bossa, especially the Italian stuff.

I have only one album by Sacha as a leader, a vocal album on US RCA.  So no, I have never heard that track.  Thank you for sharing.  

While I do recognize 1964 as a a hard dividing line, due to the arrival of the Beatles and the accompanying destruction they wrought, many of my favorite LPs date from the late 1960s and early 1970s.  I especially love the international jet set albums, in which Bossa is an important part of the mix.  Key composers you find covered on those albums will include Jobim, Legrand, Mancini, Morricone, Bacharach, Tony Hatch, Jimmy Webb, and LenMac.  In other words, all the songs that Astrud Gilberto and Claudine Longet covered. 

Edited May 29, 2021 by Teasing the Korean

[Big Beat Steve]

1 hour ago, Teasing the Korean said:

While I do recognize 1964 as a a hard dividing line, due to the arrival of the Beatles and the accompanying destruction they wrought, many of my favorite LPs date from the late 1960s and early 1970s.  I especially love the international jet set albums, in which Bossa is an important part of the mix.  Key composers you find covered on those albums will include Jobim, Legrand, Mancini, Morricone, Bacharach, Tony Hatch, Jimmy Webb, and LenMac.  In other words, all the songs that Astrud Gilberto and Claudine Longet covered. 

The album has several tracks with a Bossa feel.

I guess "Internatonal jet set album" might not be the worst description of that album, actually. Somehow a lot of the tunes remind me of 60s film music scores and some of these tracks might have provided a background for movies like "L'homme de RIo" (The Man from RIo", 1964) feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo.

[Teasing the Korean]

48 minutes ago, Big Beat Steve said:

The album has several tracks with a Bossa feel.

I guess "Internatonal jet set album" might not be the worst description of that album, actually. Somehow a lot of the tunes remind me of 60s film music scores and some of these tracks might have provided a background for movies like "L'homme de RIo" (The Man from RIo", 1964) feat. Jean-Paul Belmondo.

A ringing endorsement, from TTK's perspective!  

[GA Russell]

 

[mikeweil]

These 5/4 tunes were a new genre of Brazilian rhythms called "Jequibau". Unfortunately it didn't live long. There even was a method for playing it in English, but I never managed to get a copy. MacKay & Hamilton were great at playing this.Mario Albanese "invented" this rhythm

 

Edited May 30, 2021 by mikeweil

[mikeweil]

https://www.academia.edu/37353945/Bossa_Nova_e_Jequibau_músicas_em_dialogo

But, as one would have thought, a drummer was substantial in creating the rhythm, Zé Nazário:

https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zé_Eduardo_Nazário

Edited May 30, 2021 by mikeweil

[JSngry]

Wow, looks like there was  a dance to go with it?

 

[JSngry]

32 minutes ago, mikeweil said:

These 5/4 tunes were a new genre of Brazilian rhythms called "Jequibau". Unfortunately it didn't live long. There even was a method for playing it in English, but I never managed to get a copy. MacKay & Hamilton were great at playing this.

So it was more than a Don Ellis thing for Mackay, eh? Interesting!

Then there's Harihar Rao...a lot of "cultural cross-polination" going on in that time/place...

 

[GA Russell]

I remember Don Ellis mentioning Dave Mackay on one of his PJ albums, but I haven't thought about him since.

Wikipedia says he passed away last June.

Wikipedia and DuckDuckGo have very little to say about Vicky Hamilton.  She died in 1971.  Anyone know anything about her?