Word: bossa
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...Gene Lees, the lyricist who worked with Antonio Carlos Jobim on English-language adaptations of such bossa nova classics as "Desafinado" and "Corcovado" once commented that Brazilian songwriters tend to endlessly rhyme the words "song," "guitar" and "heart" - which actually do rhyme in Portuguese, cançao, violao and coraçao, respectively. Having attended the first week of Rock in Rio, having seen an endless procession of Brazilian bands, having heard an endless series of Brazilian songs, sweated under Brazilian sunlight, eaten Brazilian food, danced (or attempted to dance) Brazilian dances, I think I've gotten some idea...
...clad in a simple white tunic and flowing white pants. His music is a stew of many ingredients - Brazilian spices, West African meat, European pop broth. Nascimento seems to view the world as his supermarket, throwing in his musical cart Portuguese fado, South African juju music and, of course, bossa nova rhythms from his native country. His first song popped and burbled with township jive, and the emotional high point was reached when Lo Borges (a peer of Nascimento's who hails from his home region of Minas Gerais) joined him on stage for a rendition of Nascimento's song...
...Brazil. Samba got its start in the early 20th century as many former slaves moved to central Rio, taking with them their traditions of batucadas (percussion jams) and fusing the rhythms with influences from more formal musical genres such as marcha and maxixe. In the '50s there was the bossa nova, a cooler, more streamlined genre partly derived from samba that was championed by Antonio Carlos Jobim and others. And in the mid-'60s, in the wake of the Beatles and psychedelia and political oppression in Brazil, there was Tropicalia, a free-spirited take on music that mixed indigenous rhythms...
...eager to talk to Max de Castro, a Beck-like performer who blends samba, hip-hop and bossa nova into something fresh and interesting. I bought his CD, the terrific and inventive "Samba Raro" on Amazon.com, but since it was taking too long to arrive, I just downloaded the whole thing from Napster. It's well worth getting, but I recommend you give the guy a break and pay for it (my hard copy is on its way via overnight mail) since it's not like he's making Metallica money. Those guys, you can feel free...
...Loaf (the tour guide helpfully informs us that it's so named because early explorers thought it "looked like a loaf of sugar"). I gradually tune her out and I try to use what I've seen to come up with a deep think. When Jobim helped launch the bossa nova boom in 1956, it was considered a radical new style, upsetting to the samba-ruled old order. The "new way" (one translation of "bossa nova") was smooth, stripped-down music, but full of strange harmonies and unusual syncopation. While other musical acts of the period were singing and performing...