This year's Festival celebrates 50 years of Bossa Nova, the famous musical style that traveled the world with tunes such as "The Girl from Ipanema".

In 1989, Tom, (Antônio Carlos Jobim's nickname), explains: "In Portuguese, a bossa means a 'boss', a protuberance, a hump, a bump. Like you have the bossa of Notre Dame. And the human brain has these protuberances, these bumps in the head. These convexities correspond to the concavities of gray matter in the brain. So, if a guy has something, it is literally a bump in the brain, a talent for something. To say that he has a bossa for guitar would mean that he has a genius for guitar. So it has come to mean a flair for something and Bossa Nova was a 'new flair'. I believe I was the first guy to write about Bossa Nova, in the liner notes to João Gilberto's album; I used 'Bahiana Bossa Nova'." That phrase translates as 'the new flair from Bahia', referring to João Gilberto's home state.

"My contemporaries and I learned a lot from the Brazilian composers who came before us. People like Pixinguinha, Ary Barroso and Dorival Caymmi left a rastro, a track of beauty for us to follow. When Bossa Nova first appeared in Brazil, though, it had so many adversaries, so many puristas full of animosity. Yet the U.S. loved us. We received so many no's in Brazil, and so many yes's in the States. With hindsight, I can see that the more the U.S. said yes, the more Brazil said no. Our affinity for jazz was part of the problem, and it has come to dominate many people's thinking about our music. Instead of going into history as a branch of samba, which it is, Bossa Nova is viewed by the world as a branch of jazz. Of course, he added, anything that swings today is called jazz, the term has become so encompassing. And the only countries that really swing in their music are the U.S., Cuba and Brazil."

Tom Jobim.


Helen Dobrenski
http://www.fest21.com/en/blog/helen