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Before we begin our journey into the historically beautiful and wondrous world of bossa nova, let me introduce myself. My name is Bryan Chia and I am a first year student born, raised and currently studying Audio Technology for Contemporary Music in Malaysia. This humble padlet that you are about to read was made for a final semester project for my World Music subject which required me to either research on a World music genre or instrument and have all my findings written out in a padlet such as this one. My hopes for this padlet goes beyond the assignment. Within this padlet my hopes is that the information helps anyone who is interested or trying to learn about bossa nova achieve what they need. Now without further ado, let me take you on your first step towards the heart and soul of Brazilian music - Bossa Nova.

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0. An Introduction to Bossa Nova (Red)

1. Bossa Nova in a Traditional Context (Orange)

The Roots of Bossa Nova

Notable Figures of Bossa Nova

Bossa Nova Instrumentation

Musical Elements within Bossa Nova

2. Bossa Nova in a Modern Context (Green)

Analysis I - Billie Boss Nova - Billie Eilish

Analysis II - bossa uh - potsu

3. Observations (Blue)

4. Conclusion (Purple)

References (White)

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Bossa Nova, the phrase which roughly translates to new wave or new trend, was born on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in the 1950s-60s (Ribeiro, 2018). As a genre of music, Bossa Nova has caused a huge spectacle when it was first conceived and still has a stir in the music scene until today, especially during a time where the tension on political ropes between America and Brazil was at an all time high, Bossa Nova was the cultural key in untying its knots. (Myers, 2019)

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Who and when truly invented the Bossa Nova sound is still a mystery to this day, as the community back then was so tightly knitted it's hard to point out who inspired who first, but a known certainty is that the sound of Bossa Nova which we hear today has been heavily influenced by a derivative of Samba known as Samba-canção, a slower-tempo samba rhythm which at the dawn of Bossa Nova’s birth dominated the Brazilian music scene, with notable tracks like “Manhã De Carnaval” and “Samba De Orfeu” which were both composed by Brazilian composer and guitarist Luiz Bonfá for the movie “Black Orpheus” which was released in 1959 that added into the Bossa Nova repertoire (Tatit, 1996) . Other inspirations of Bossa Nova that often goes unnotice is Blues, there is a very simple reason why US jazz musicians has grew such immeanse attachment towards Bossa Nova, it is because of Bossa's deep influence from Blues and it showing itself as a familiar face as a similar structure is imposed with Brazilian jazz musicians at that time knowing that they were slowly heading into African-American cultural music scene (McCann, 2007). But the first ever bossa nova song ever written was in 1956 by João Gilberto called ”Chega de Saudade” which then made it into his debut album of the same name released in the same year as “Black Orpheus” which the album has now been considered the true birth of Bossa Nova (Castro, 2018). Bossa Nova during this stage was still quite obscure in terms of international recognition until Stam Getz came to be. Music critics at the time offered alternative views as a creation in a studio in Los Angeles in 1953 by prolific musicians Bud Shank and Laurindho Almeida, an influential musician who is also accredited to the birth of Bossa Nova together with Antonio Carlos Jobim.

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Image of Antônio Carlos Jobim playing the flute

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As mentioned above Antônio Carlos Jobim or more commonly known as Tom Jobim was accredited as the “Father of Bossa Nova” would internationalise Bossa Nova by frequently collaborating with American Artists such as Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald in albums like Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim (1967) and Ella Abraça Jobim (1981) respectively. As for Brazilian collaborators, Tom Jobin would frequently collaborate with João Gilberto a singer, songwriter and guitarist who was instrumental in bringing Bossa Nova into the American Jazz scene when João collaborated with Stanley Getz an American saxophonist to create the Getz/Gilberto (1964) album which featured “The Girl from Ipanema'' sang by Gilberto’s wife at the time Astrud Gilberto. Tom would also frequently collaborate with the lyricist for “The Girl from Ipanema ''; Vinícius de Moraes, a poet, essayist and playwright. The three of them had made “The Girl from Ipanema” what it is today, the song that is now the second most recorded pop song in history right behind The Beatles’s “Yesterday” (Vinciguerra, 2012). Other honourable mentions are Milton Banana the drummer who created the signature Bossa Nova rhythm and Carlos Lyra a singer who together with Tom Jobim helped create João Gilberto’s album ”Chega de Saudade” (Castro, 2018).

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To create that classic Bossa Nova sound the nylon string classical guitar is the key. The classical guitar or spanish guitar has played a large role in Latin American music history and the same applies to Bossa Nova, by playing it with the fingers instead of a guitar pick a softer tone is achieved to ensure that the guitar serves a harmonic role and not a melodic one. A great example will be “The Girl from Ipanema”, where João plays jazzy 7th chords with a Samba-canção like sway to accompany the light, airy vocals properties from Astrud.

As for percussion, a large Brazilian floor tom known as a Surdo plays an ostinato pattern on the downbeat of the first and second beat, another element for a Bossa Nova percussive style is the Cabasa a shaker that plays 16th notes in a steady pulse. A double bass is typically used to play the root notes of each chord in an almost walking blues bass line, as for lead instruments, piano, saxophone, flute and many other wind instruments have been used to play solos within Bossa songs. Using the same example of “The Girl from Ipanema” Stan Getz plays his signature almost voice like texture on the saxophone to give the song a jazzier touch paying homage to Bossa Nova parent genres.

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The important notes here are the first beat and the fifth on the third beat by playing the root notes of each designated chord, anything in between can be interchangable as long as the notes are short and harmonically unimportant.

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Because the Bass in the left hand plays the root notes, chords used in Bossa Nova playing typically go for a rootless voicing, the comping itself is very fluid and natural with only one rule, which is having at least 1 or 2 beats off-beat to create the signature syncopated feel.

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For melodies shell chords are used. Shell chords are chords that contain the 1st, the 3rd and the 7th as they determine the type of chord whether it be Maj7, Min7 or Dominant.

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Analysis I - Billie Bossa Nova - Billie Eilish

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Analysis I - Billie Bossa Nova - Billie Eilish

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This analysis is done solely on this recording of the song Billie Bossa Nova and not the one within the album itself. The first notable Bossa sound is the Acoustic guitar played by Billie's executive producer/brother Finneas. He plays a classic Bossa Nova fingerpicking style with an alternating bass and chord sequence, he also chooses to play percussively by slapping the strings of the guitar creating a snare like sound playing on 2 and 4 of the beat and occasionally playing off beat to create syncopation. Billie’s and Finneas’s vocals on this song is not only complementary to each other but also to the Bossa Nova vocal style which tends to lend itself on a more nasally tone. Towards the end of the song Finneas takes an approach towards a different tonal ending by whistling the main melody. As for lyrical theme, Billie wrote lyrics fitting for a slow, sensual love song and in an 2021 interview with Madame Figaro Billie Eilish while discussing the inspirations for the sound of Happier than Ever paid homage to Tom Jobim as she said:

“It is inspired by the bossa-nova of Antonio Carlos Jobim, by this musical world which existed before me and which left us a marvelous heritage.” (Genone, 2021)

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Billie Eilish - Billie Bossa Nova (TIME ABC Performance 2021)

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A youtube playlist of the "The New Bossa Nova"

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Analysis II - The New Bossa Nova - Luciana Souza

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Analysis II - The New Bossa Nova - Luciana Souza

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Brazilian singer, songwriter Luciana Souza in 2007 released an album called “The New Bossa Nova” which is filled with bossa nova rendition of songs from popular pop artists like Joni Mitchell’s Down to You, James Taylor’s Never Die Young, Leonard Cohen’s Here it is and many many more. Luciana wanted to explore bossa nova music in a way that would be accessible to all listeners, but she was also deeply exploring the style that pays homage to her Brazilian roots, creators and her parents both being jazz musicians. Luciana's voice has a very unique and distinguishable tone, as it is so concentrated, without unnecessary distractions or decorations, that people can hear the lyrics completely. Luciana tried to use Bossa nova's medium to allow listeners to hear the poems of great composers in different fields in a new way. She hoped to use bossa nova's minimalist aesthetic to provide a landscape in which poetry can take on new meaning and intensity as bossa nova is a means of contemplation (NPR, 2007)

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Bossa Nova in recent years has seen a steady decline in popularity which arguably is due to cultural differences. Since the Getz/Gilberto album and other similar Bossa Nova tracks and its success in the U.S., the South American music circle began to see Bossa nova as a whitewashing of their musical culture. Bossa Nova has a unique love-hate relationship with South American culture as a whole. To understand this better, music was an effort to create national identity in the early 19th century by colonists at the time but also served missionary purposes. It then evolved to represent ethnic groups as well as African music and its rhythmic influence blended in with the taste of the public (Mann, 2015). It is also important to understand that the perception of music is very different worldwide. For the generic U.S. and other world audiences, good music meant good harmonic language and good melodies. For music genres that evolved from Africa like those found in Latin jazz and Cuban Jazz, if the music does not make the listener want to dance, it is not considered good music because dancing is integral and inseparable to music in their eyes. The popularity of the Bossa Nova genre was almost quite literally out of proportion outside Brazil, and the U.S. market served a huge role in that regard. Bossa Nova prior to “The Girl from Ipanema” already received criticism by both U.S. and Brazilian music critics in a 1962 performance at the Carnegie Hall by well-acclaimed jazz musicians like Charlie Byrd, Stam Getz, Jobim, Johnny Alf, but with very different contexts. The U.S. critics revolved around the horrible execution in sound quality (Balliett, 1962), and the Brazilian critics flamed it for not being authentic and not making them swing (Tinhorão, 1962). Americans started to attempt to create dances for Bossa Nova, which strayed for away from the intent of creating music for intellectuals in Brazil and made it seem to them like forcing the return of Bossa Nova as a lower echelon standard, coupled by the excessive use in American commercials and radio advertisement that were ironically used to display luxurious exoticism. The estrangement of Bossa Nova from its roots in Brazil and the overly played and misunderstood Americans made Bossa Nova lose its fascination and awe it once had.

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Bossa Nova is a combination of 3 things, Samba rhythms, Jazz Harmony and Melodic Dissonance. Its play style is often soft, sparse and instead of jazz swing standards it tends to provide listeners a “swaying” feel. As bossa nova composer Carlos Lyra describes it in his song "Influência do Jazz" released in 2000, the samba rhythm moves "side to side" while jazz moves "front to back". While most Latin American genres such as Samba, Salsa, Mambo and many others within the Afro-Cuban category contain a key rhythm known as a  clave where the entire song is centered around it the Afro-Brazilian Jazz or Bossa Nova for short does not utilize a clave to construct their tunes instead its rhythms are varied and interchangeable. That being said, Brazilian Jazz musicians still utilise a rhythmic motif called a “Brazilian clave” or “Bossa Nova clave” as a guide rather than a true clave. In order to play the Bossa Nova three parts must be present: A bass ostinato, choral comping and the lead melody. Below are an example of playing Bossa Nova piano of the three parts within a small section of "The Girl from Ipanema" (Anonymous, 2018).

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Bossa Nova remains today as the epitome of what happens when something becomes so popular it becomes its own downfall. It is uniquely South American music still, and “The Girl from Ipanema” still holds patriotic pride among Brazilians today, but it is also without the flair and festivity of other Latin jazz styles. It is still addictively fun to listen to, but it became so overplayed that it is now unfortunately labelled as “elevator music”. Most importantly and sadly, it was once the national pride but it is now accurately a misleading view of Brazil’s musical landscape, accidentally devoid of the pulsating drums and dances that is core to the identity of culture and wit of traditional Brazilian panache. That being said however, none of this should diminish the appreciation of how bossa nova sounds, and listeners should let bossa nova do what it does best; carry the listener somewhere inviting, somewhere even nostalgic, somewhere cool.

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1. Ribeiro, Adriana. (2018). 60 years of Bossa Nova. Retrieved from https://conteudo.ebc.com.br/portal/projetos/2018/bossa-nova/

2. Myers, M. (2019). How Brazil’s Bossa Nova became all the rage in 60’s America. Jazz FM Music News, February 13. Retrieved from https://jazz.fm/how-brazils-bossa-nova-became-all-the-rage-in-60s-america/

3. Tatit, Luiz. (1996). The songwriter: songwriting in Brazil.

4. McCann, Bryan. (2007). Blues and Samba: Another Side of Bossa Nova History retrieve from https://eds.p.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=7&sid=c0170e10-dfb5-4156-b932-8906dbb4a5b5%40redis

5. Castro, Ruy. (2018). Chega de Saudade: The history and stories of Bossa Nova.

6. Vinciguerra, Thomas. (2012). The Elusive Girl From Ipanema. Retrieve from: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303649504577492603567202024

7. Anonymous. (2018). Retrieved from: https://www.thejazzpianosite.com/jazz-piano-lessons/jazz-genres/how-to-play-bossa-nova/

8. Genone, Paula. (2021). Billie Eilish: "I could have someone dress me, write my music… I'd rather die than be that kind of artist". Retrieved from: https://madame.lefigaro.fr/celebrites/billie-eilish-je-pourrais-demander-a-quelquun-de-mhabiller-decrire-ma-musique-je-prefere-mourir-plutot-que-detre%27ce%27genre%27dartiste-160721-197461

9. NPR. (2007). Luciana Souza: Revising Pop by Way of Bossa Nova. Retrieved from: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15411275

10. Mann, K. (2015). The Musical Tradition in Latin America. Oxford Bibliographies.

11. Balliett, W. (1962). “Bossa Nova, Go Home”. The New Yorker, December 1, 197-9.

12. Timhorão, J.E. (1963). “Bossa Nova Vive Um Drama”. Senhor, April-May edition, 35.