Marshall (10) credits Brazilian musicians Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim for creating the Bossa Nova sound. It was basically soft samba of Brazil to which very refined American jazz harmonies were blended. It was a 1959 Brazilian movie Black Orpheus that introduced musical gift of Brazil to international audience. The much acclaimed film presented to the viewers the genuine Brazilian culture and music to the world. The movie plays the story of lovers Orpheus and Eurydice in Rio de Janeiro during carnival. The musical storytelling used exotic repercussion instruments and call and response singing with solo guitar melodies composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luiz Bonfa, the then young musicians of Rio. Their compositions combined rhythm and texture from Brazil with elements from American Jazz. These elements fused so well that soon the world was going to have its enormous influence on popular music as bossa Nova or new beat (Kirchner 548). Basically the experimentation had begun in early 1960s to create this unique blend. In 1956, in the guitar academy of Carlos Lyra lots of experiments with chords influenced by the jazz music of Gerry Mulligan carried out. Along with other musician Jobim and Gilberto created new combined style by fusion of samba, jazz and Villa-lobos and other Brazilan music. Harmonically their bossa nova tunes included altered chords, inverted chords and unusual harmonic progression as well as unexpected melodic leaps and tonal shifts. Thus a low key, simple and extremely melodious effect was created (McGowan and Pessanha 67). Bossa nova is based on samba rhythm and has a swaying rather than. How did American jazz influence Brazilian guitar music.
Work Cited
Bossa Nova. 17 May 2009. http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneychords/bossanova.html,
Candelaria, C and Peter J. Garcia. Encyclopedia of Latino popular culture.
Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004
Kirchner, B. The Oxford companion to jazz. Oxford University Press US, 2005
Livingston-Isenhour, T., Thomas George and Caracas Garcia. Choro: a social history of
a Brazilian popular music. Indiana University Press, 2005
Marshall, Dave. Learn to Play Brazilian Jazz Guitar. Mel Bay Publications, 1999
McGowan, C and Ricardo Pessanha. The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova, and the
Popular Music of Brazil. Temple University Press, 1998
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