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I am sitting here in tropical heat with the windows open, listening to a playlist that is supposed to be bossa nova. Now, I have noticed this list seems to contain a lot of songs that are just normal jazz.

Does anyone know how bossa is defined? Delacroix perhaps? Is it a 7/8? What about samba, what is that?

@CE, it's a specific beat, Brazilian in origin. American jazz musicians picked up on it pretty quickly. I imagine nowadays it's used very loosely by people who probably don't know what it means.

Thanks Fable, that explains it. I know it is Brazilian in origin, and I like the original stuff, but right now I can only find extremly jazzified forms that seems to lack the right beat. If Delacroix turns up, he might be able to recommend some artists.

Good to see you like Bossa Nova.

Bossa Nova artist drink on Jazz origins. The fact is that Jazz came first. But in Bossa Nova the artist turn the news into brazilian context in a great and very sonore style. Probaly that's why you find it similar.

Personally I love it, especially because its the origin of the MPB(another brazilian music line). But Bossa Nova was not only a music style; for me it was the old photographs of an Époque(Belle?) of Brazil; where Rio(more exactly Ipanema[where I live] was the hoster of the artist scenario.

I most recomend an Artist nammed "Tom Jobim", who was also master of Chico Buarque(MPB). He wrote and sing some songs with Sinatra, some of them in English. Some songs like "Águas de Março"(Waters of March), "Garota de Ipanema"(Girl of Ipanema), "Anos Dourados"(Golden Years), "Insensatez"(Sorry, I dont remember any similar word) and "Passarim" (Little Bird?) were the most famous of his work. In the present I use to go in the Bar he use to go(that now have his name), its very kind(since I don't see him alive).


My favorite Jobim's song is Waters of March, remember me a bucolic, peacefull context in a fragmented, metaphorical lyric; in fact remember me the place I wish to go. . But the sound(swing?) of the song is as important as the lyric.



Waters of March(Since the original was in Portuguese I hope this version don't loose too much)

A stick, a stone, it's the end of the road,
It's the rest of a stump, it's a little alone,
It's a sliver of glass, it is life, it's the sun,
It is night, it is death, it's a trap, it's a gun.
The oak when it blooms, a fox in the brush,
The nod of the wood, the song of a thrush,
The wood of the wing, a cliff, a fall,
A scratch, a lump, it is nothing at all.
It's the wind blowing free, it's the end of a slope,
It's a bean, it's a void, it's a hunch, it's a hope.

And the riverbank talks of the Waters of March,
It's the end of the strain, it's the joy in your heart.
The foot, the ground, the flesh and the bone,
The beat of the road, a sling-shot stone,
A truckload of bricks in the soft morning light,
The shot of a gun in the dead of the night.
A mile, a must, a thrust, a bump,
It's a girl, it's a rhyme, it's a cold, it's the mumps.
The plan of the house, the body in bed,
And the car that got stuck, it's the mud, it's the mud.
Afloat, adrift, a flight, a wing,
A ****, a quail, the promise of spring.

And the riverbank talks of the Waters of March,
It's the promise of life, it's the joy in your heart.
A point, a grain, a bee, a bite,
A blink, a buzzard, a sudden stroke of night,
A pin, a needle, a sting, a pain,
A snail, a riddle, a wasp, a stain.
A snake, a stick, it is John, it is Joe,
A fish, a flash, a silvery glow.

And the riverbank talks of the Waters of March,
It's the promise of life in your heart, in your heart.
A stick, a stone, the end of the load,
The rest of a stump, a lonesome road.
A sliver of glass, a life, the sun,
A night, a death, the end of the run.

And the riverbank talks of the Waters of March,
It's the end of all strain, it's the joy in your heart.


Tom Jobim- 1972


This is the one of the English informative sites about Jobim and Bossa Nova
Jobim-Bossa Nova

Hehe, Jobim has been one of my favorites for a long time, he is (together with Joan Gilberto) almost the only bossa nova artist I know by name

The girl from Ipanema and Corcovado are of course among my favorites

Good link, thanks a lot. Can you recommend any special albums or any special other artists? And how do you really dance to bossa nova?

Originally posted by C Elegans

Does anyone know how bossa is defined? Delacroix perhaps? Is it a 7/8? What about samba, what is that?

Bossa Nova was formed by erudits( people of the cultural elite) who like Jazz; As MPB, it came from/for the cultural elite.
Samba is diferent, is popular, from/for low social factions. I don't mean any preconceitual division; but the real Samba(the good Samba) is not from high class musicians.

[After I end the phrase above, I realise I confuse social factions with cultural factions, but the phrase isn't false.]

Technically speaking Delacroix, how do you differ samba from bossa? I have a bit of a problem with that - I hear it is a different beat (as I said bossa sounds like a 7/8 beat if you know what I mean).

What kind of music is MPB, what does it stand for?

By CElegans:
And how do you really dance to bossa nova?

With no one looking . Seriously I don't know, this must be asked for someone older than me, when I born Bossa Nova was completing 30 years. I just listen to it.

Technically speaking Delacroix, how do you differ samba from bossa? I have a bit of a problem with that - I hear it is a different beat (as I said bossa sounds like a 7/8 beat if you know what I mean).

People probaly only listen to Bossa Nova, BTW Bossa Nova and MPB Artists use to say they are playing Samba. Lie. Bossa is rebuscated, technically composed kind of music. Samba came before. Bossa become famous around the world with/like Jazz(I cannot go futher in diference because of my music ignorance[Ps: I also don't know what is a 7/8]).

By CElegans:
What kind of music is MPB, what does it stand for?

MPB- Brazilian Popular Music(BPM-in english), but there is nothing of popular in MPB[its a elite movement]. Brazilian great contemporaneous musicians are insered in MPB like Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil. The music is high technically made, similar to Bossa but with lager independence to Jazz, acustic instruments.
Is my favorite kind of Music.

posted by Delacroix
With no one looking . Seriously I don't know, this must be asked for someone older than me, when I born Bossa Nova was completing 30 years. I just listen to it.

Hm, I might try to ask somebody who is into ballroom dancing then.

People probaly only listen to Bossa Nova, BTW Bossa Nova and MPB Artists use to say they are playing Samba. Lie. Bossa is rebuscated, technically composed kind of music. Samba came before. Bossa become famous around the world with/like Jazz(I cannot go futher in diference because of my music ignorance[Ps: I also don't know what is a 7/8]).

OK, I see. I had no idea bossa was a technical kind of music, interesting, I actually thought it was the other way around, samba being more technical. (A 7/8 is just a technical way of describing a beat, all rythms can be described like that, a waltz beat is 3/4 (ie three beats, each with the lenght of a 1/4 note), salsa is a 4/4 etc. Just forget it, I am used to it because I've played music a lot.)

MPB- Brazilian Popular Music(BPM-in english), but there is nothing of popular in MPB[its a elite movement]. Brazilian great contemporaneous musicians are insered in MPB like Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil. The music is high technically made, similar to Bossa but with lager independence to Jazz, acustic instruments.
Is my favorite kind of Music.

Definitely sounds like something I must check out since I like bossa and I like a lot of jazz, both classic and modern jazz.

What other music do you like?

By CElegans:
Definitely sounds like something I must check out since I like bossa and I like a lot of jazz, both classic and modern jazz.

What other music do you like?

What I mean to "technical" before is as construction of the music, Bossa, Jazz and MPB are all much more refinned and technical than Rock for example.

I Like MPB and Classical Rock. I cannot compare this two preferences because they are too diferent. MPB is refinned, very complex construction(at least from Chico Buarque) and lovely lyrics. Classical Rock is expressive, in english, music that I grow up listening(Pink Floyd, Led Zepelin, The Doors, Beattles).

But I don't listen only old musics. In the present Dave Mathews band make some good musics, Radiohead, also. From the 90's I like Pearl Jam.

I'm a little restrict, and there are lots of styles I even know what it is. Merengue? Salsa? ChaChaCha? Mambo? Anything Eletronic?

Originally posted by Delacroix
What I mean to "technical" before is as construction of the music, Bossa, Jazz and MPB are all much more refinned and technical than Rock for example.

Yes, that's how I thought you meant it, as how I mean it too

I Like MPB and Classical Rock. I cannot compare this two preferences because they are too diferent.

Yes, obviously very different, I guess you like the two genres for totally different reasons.

I'm a little restrict, and there are lots of styles I even know what it is. Merengue? Salsa? ChaChaCha? Mambo? Anything Eletronic?

One has to be a bit restrict, a lifetime is not enough to listen to all types of music. I know a little bit about merengue & salsa, nothing about chachacha and mambo. Electcronic - yes, that is a large genre, everything from "contemporary classic" beginning with Stockhausen 80 years or so ago, to modern techno.

I most recomend an Artist nammed "Tom Jobim",

Is this the same artist known in the US as Antonio Carlos Jobim? He broke the Bossa craze, here, and jazz artists like Stan Getz made recordings with him.

Originally posted by fable
I most recomend an Artist nammed "Tom Jobim",

Is this the same artist known in the US as Antonio Carlos Jobim? He broke the Bossa craze, here, and jazz artists like Stan Getz made recordings with him.

Yes, Antonio Carlos "Brasileiro" Jobim, as some call him around here.
He was, as man, the example of boemia. The Bar I talk about(Tom Jobim's) is in front of another one nammed Vinicious de Moraes(another great artist of Bossa Nova). They wrote Girl of Ipanema in one of that tables. Unecessary to say that he bar is in the way of the beach.