How did American jazz influence Brazilian guitar music? Essay Example

There were even new terms coined for choro influenced by American music viz. Choro de big band and choro de jazz band. At the same time the guitar emerged as main, the solo instrument in the choro and thus elevated in status from being a lowly instrument of street musicians. Its new versions pandeiro and seven string guitar were added to choro group. Later the politicization of this American music blended choro occurred as self appointed protectors of culture started blaming it as cultural invasion that is destroying the purity of native culture. Both prominent singers Pixinguinha and Carmen Miranda came under pressure to remain current and also preserve national identity. By 1950s Choro craze succumbed to wave of new popular music (Livingston-Isenhour et al 106).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