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

[Teasing the Korean]

14 hours 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.Mario Albanese "invented" this rhythm

 

I have that LP.  I remember it as being good, but it's been ages since I've spun it.  Yeah, I don't hear any evidence that it caught on.

[Teasing the Korean]

14 hours ago, JSngry said:

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

Maybe the Brasilians didn't want to let this one slip past them, as they had with the Bossa Nova!

[JSngry]

Do we know that there was not a Bossa Nova dance in Brazil? Certainly not the American one, of course. But were people too chill and to cool to dance to Bossa in Brazil?

[Teasing the Korean]

10 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Do we know that there was not a Bossa Nova dance in Brazil? Certainly not the American one, of course. But were people too chill and to cool to dance to Bossa in Brazil?

Whether some tried to dance to it or not, I don't know, but the name had never been used in relation to a specific dance.  

Brasil in the 1950s was on the verge of coming into its own as a major player on the world stage, but that never quite happened the way it was promised. Bossa was basically willed into existence by a group of young upper-class intellectual Cariocas.  They were obsessed with Frank Sinatra and Stan Kenton, and wanted to create a music that was both inherently Brasilian and modern.  Joao Gilberto is credited with coming up with the guitar pattern.  It was intended as quiet, introspective, sophisticated music.  

Ruy Castro's book is worth reading. 

[JSngry]

If they had (or quite possibly, invented) a dance for the Jeqibau, then they were already dancing to Bossa, no?

Then again, that note about the dance was on the back of an American LP, so maybe the whole thing was made up.Maybe nobody danced to Bossa in Brazil, maybe they just (allegedly) did that in America.

Again, Americans will just make shit up and sell it because nothing will stop them except for nobody buying it. But if they buy it, hey, it must be real, right? 50,000,000 Elvis fans can't be wrong. 

[Teasing the Korean]

5 minutes ago, JSngry said:

If they had (or quite possibly, invented) a dance for the Jeqibau, then they were already dancing to Bossa, no?

I don't think we could prove that nobody in Brasil ever danced to the Bossa, but it was intended as listening music, much like jazz has become (for better or worse).  My point was the music was not centered around a dance, and there was no dance in Brasil devised to go with it.  Roy Castro addresses this in his book, which I recommend.

[JSngry]

But as for Brazil...I cannot imagine not dancing to Walter Wanderly.

No matter the glammed up saudade, there's still a dance there.

[Teasing the Korean]

2 minutes ago, JSngry said:

But as for Brazil...I cannot imagine not dancing to Walter Wanderly.

No matter the glammed up saudade, there's still a dance there.

Ruy Castro goes into detail in his book.

[JSngry]

Can you summarize, or do I need to go read the book so I can do it? 

I mean, either people were dancing or they weren't. I get that the original intent was one thing, and I've heard that boot of the night that Ipanema was debuted, and it's all very Rat Pack-y, but... that's one end of the spectrum. At the other end, there was a lot of Bossa popular records being made in Brazil for Brazilians, so we're they all being sold for navel-gazing and chic-ing, or was there some foot moving and ass gyrating going on as well?

[Teasing the Korean]

3 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Can you summarize, or do I need to go read the book so I can do it? 

I mean, either people were dancing or they weren't. I get that the original intent was one thing, and I've heard that boot of the night that Ipanema was debuted, and it's all very Rat Pack-y, but... that's one end of the spectrum. At the other end, there was a lot of Bossa popular records being made in Brazil for Brazilians, so we're they all being sold for navel-gazing and chic-ing, or was there some foot moving and ass gyrating going on as well?

I just did summarize it for you.  There was no dance in Brasil called the Bossa Nova. The music was not a tie-in to a non-existent dance craze, or vice-versa.  The dance was a US concoction.  I don't know how to make it any simpler than that. 

[JSngry]

No, I did not ask if there was a dance in Brazil called the Bossa Nova.

I asked were people dancing to the Bossa Nova in Brazil, and if they were what were they dancing, what dance(s).

You can make it simpler by either giving an answer to that question or by simply saying that you don't know.

[Teasing the Korean]

1 minute ago, JSngry said:

No, I did not ask if there was a dance in Brazil called the Bossa Nova.

I asked were people dancing to the Bossa Nova in Brazil, and if they were what were they dancing, what dance(s).

You can make it simpler by either giving an answer to that question or by simply saying that you don't know.

As to whether anyone ever in Brasil did or did not dance to it, I don't know.  But the photos of live performances from that era all show young scenesters listening in rapt attention. 

[Daniel A]

15 hours 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.Mario Albanese "invented" this rhythm

 

You learn so much at this place! 

Mike, with your knowledge on Tjader, do you have a theory as to how he would have known and recorded the tune "Here" a year and a half before Mackay himself? I cannot see any evidence that they played together.

[JSngry]

All right, then. Sounds like there's a fuller picture ( no pun intended) to be had, maybe.

And now I wonder even more if that blurb about the dance for the Jequibau was a totally fabricated American record company line of bullshit.

[Teasing the Korean]

20 minutes ago, JSngry said:

All right, then. Sounds like there's a fuller picture ( no pun intended) to be had, maybe.

In Ruy Castro's book between pp 232 and 235, he indicates that Lennie Dale, a US choreographer working in Brasil, "...decided to jump the gun and invent a dance before some other gringo did." Castro indicates that the dance never caught on in Brasil, in part because "men did not feel comfortable dancing it because it did not suit their masculinity terribly well...and the only women who were capable of executing such contortions, without ending up at a chiropractor, were...professional dancers."  Elsewhere in the same section, Castro describes Bossa as "a form of music that was meant to be exclusively listened to."

20 minutes ago, JSngry said:

And now I wonder even more if that blurb about the dance for the Jequibau was a totally fabricated American record company line of bullshit.

Castro does not reference the Jequibau at all, so could be.

Edited May 30, 2021 by Teasing the Korean

[JSngry]

https://www.aventuradobrasil.com/blog/brazilian-music-styles-the-bossa-nova/

Talks here about a Bossa dance being introduced around 1960 and not catching on.

Lennie Dale is featured on the Ellis Regina biopic, which also depicts her as being very scornful of the "cool," style of singing. That film is on Amazon prime and is worth a look/listen.

so..what were people dancing in Brazil? Still the Samba steps? I have no idea, but certainly there were quicker bossas that could have been danced to, just as there was post-bop stuff that was danced. Intent is one thing, outcome...one never knows.

Dancers make their own rules, I've learned. They tell you what they will dance to, you don't tell them.

[Teasing the Korean]

1 minute ago, JSngry said:

https://www.aventuradobrasil.com/blog/brazilian-music-styles-the-bossa-nova/

Lennie Dale is featured on the Ellis Regina biopic, which also depicts her as being very scornful of the "cool," style of singing. That film is on Amazon prime and is worth a look/listen.

The Bossa musicians did not like Regina when she first came on the scene.  They accused her of yelling.  By contrast, Joao Gilberto would invite a friend over to his place, have his friend stand at the other end of the hallway, and repeat "O pato" over and over as quietly as possible, trying to determine the lowest possible singing volume that could still be understood,

Obviously, Regina was accepted, and her album with Jobim in particular is considered a classic.

I have that documentary, but it has been ages since we watched it.

[JSngry]

I love the irony of a Stan Kenton influence translating to extreme quiet..but it seems that Kenton got the hint, at least a little, as much as he could get a hint...,Artistry in Bossa Nova hardly whispers, but it would not be audible at all in the same room as, say, Adventures In Time. Then again, not even a jet engine would be!

[Teasing the Korean]

4 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I love the irony of a Stan Kenton influence translating to extreme quiet..but it seems that Kenton got the hint, at least a little, as much as he could get a hint...,Artistry in Bossa Nova hardly whispers, but it would not be audible at all in the same room as, say, Adventures In Time. Then again, not even a jet engine would be!

Yeah, I have that album.  It is more restrained than you may think possible for Kenton.

[JSngry]

I like it. Many don't, but there are plenty "restrained" Kenton albums that truly suck. This one doesn't, not even somewhat.

Cool cover, too.

[Teasing the Korean]

Just now, JSngry said:

I like it. Many don't, but there are plenty "restrained" Kenton albums that truly suck. This one doesn't, not even somewhat.

Cool cover, too.

It is overdue for a revisit.

[mikeweil]

On 30.5.2021 at 7:50 PM, Daniel A said:

You learn so much at this place! 

Mike, with your knowledge on Tjader, do you have a theory as to how he would have known and recorded the tune "Here" a year and a half before Mackay himself? I cannot see any evidence that they played together.

I'd say Gary McFarland brought the tune to the session - he arranged and  produced the album and it is one of the two tracks where McFarland and Tjader play two sets of vibes. He was very much into the newest developments in Brazilian music and may have been in contatc with Dave MacKay.

p.s. Checking McFarland's and Tjader's connections etc. I think it is more probable that Tjader knew MacKay and got the tune from him. See my next post.

Edited June 2, 2021 by mikeweil

[JSngry]

Who do you think Dave MacKay would have been in contact with? Somehow it all maybe filters through Don Ellis? But how/where?

[mikeweil]

It's very hard to assume who was the link between the LA scene Dave MacKay was part of and the New York scene McFarland was in, who had such such a busy schedule I cannot visualize him taking a plane to California. Lalo Schifrin was active on both coasts, and he knew both Bob Brookmeyer and McFarland. 

I now think it was Tjader himself who heard of the music called Jequibau in California and met MacKay. Tjader played another MacKay composition, Now, on his Agua Dulce LP from 1971 and a  Brazilian tune in 7/4 on his 1973 album with Charlie Byrd. Duncan Reid writes "Tjader enjoyed the music of Dave MacKay". It is more than probable the two musicians knew each other. We better not underestimate Tjader's knowledge of the newest developments. 

Edited June 2, 2021 by mikeweil

[GA Russell]

On 5/24/2021 at 3:47 PM, Teasing the Korean said:

Ruy Castro uses it in his book Bossa Nova, which is the best book I've read on the history of the music.

My copy arrived yesterday!  It's next on my list.