Bossa Nova Saved My Life

As a teenager in the 1950’s (and to be honest today) I was always a bit out of step with my contemporaries and it was most noticeable in my choice of music. I never liked the music of my generation or succeeding ones, in fact. Rock and Roll, the English invasion of the 1960’s and the music beyond I have always found laughable, uninspired, coarse, boorish..shall I go on? . I listened, have always listened and shall listen to the music of the American songbook of the 1920’s to late 19450’s. The artistry of Sinatra, Mancini, Riddle, Nat ‘king’ Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Matt Monroe, Sue Raney and the list goes on and on. I love music, romantic music, of strings, and long melodic lines. Wit and complex lyrics – no dumbing down of the English language as is the norm today. The 1950’s pushed aside many of the great songwriters and artists of the early 20th century and towards the end of that decade, I found myself more than a bit depressed as the music being tossed out to me was awful; just awful – Rock and Roll, hard rock, soul music , folk music and such. One of my best friend's father was a concert pianist and one evening on his return for South America, he played some tapes he made of a new style of music coming from Brazil. It was called Bossa Nova and its leader was a young man named Antonio Carlos Jobim. I listened to those tapes and was taken away with the music. That night was one of the greatest in my life of musical tastes; It transformed my life and gave me hope that there was some great music out there still. Rock and Roll was music that gained popularity by being reductive and primal (as is the silly, boorish music today, the worse offender is of course -Hip hop!) by stripping out the complexity. Bossa Nova did the opposite. It took the samba (basic Brazilian beat) and it added harmonic (harmony, do you hear that today in music? harmony) sophistication – extended chords and so on and added to it a degree of lyrical complexity. Tom Jobim save my life, my musical life……..Although I miss the two artists below, I was lucky to be around when they were and to be able to hear their music..live!!!. It is as fresh today as it was some 50 years ago.