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Welcome To BossaNovaVideo!
A website dedicated to the most beautiful music in the world...bossa nova.
All About Bossa Nova!
The bossa nova had its birth in Brazil. It was born in Rio de Janeiro,
the musical city by the sea, as was appropriate. A group of youngsters seeking something different in music and a composer
by the name of Antônio Carlos Jobim were getting together in local bars to play and create some
of their ideas. Little did they know that a young man from the north by the name of João Gilberto
would cross their paths and take them to musical heights they never dreamed imaginable. João didn’t
know it either, but out of his musical expression, a new idea, a seductive and velvety soft carpet of possibilities was about
to emerge. This was bossa nova!
Songs like "Chega de Saudade" and "Desafinado" started to appear over local broadcast stations.
Jobims’ melodic display of notes sprinkled delicately over his keyboard along with the deliberate syncopation of Gilberto's
voice and intelligently unpredictable, yet quiet rhythms on his guitar, were beginning to move a country of samba, military
dictatorship, bleak class structure and industrial stagnation onto the global music scene which until today, has never been
surpassed. In the eyes of many, Brazil still is, the bossa nova. 1958 was generally considered by most, as the year that the
bossa nova "movement" officially started. Others argue that it really started with that "syncopated beat" in
1953 with the Laurindo Almeida Quartet.
In the early sixties "The Girl from Ipanema" hit the United States airwaves and caused a musical
frenzy of excitement over this "new beat" and the U. S. State Department sent guitarist Charlie Byrd and saxophonist Stan
Getz to Rio de Janeiro to be part of this new musical culture. In 1962 many of the new musicians and singers came to appear
at Carnegie Hall. The audience fell in love with the new sound and it wasn’t long before bossa nova became an international
phenomenon. Its influence is of major importance around the world.
Other songs like "Meditation", "One Note Samba", "Corcovado", "Insensitive", Aguas de Março","Ela é Carioca", "Agua de Beber", "Wave", and "Só
Danço Samba" began to appear, with such artists as Astrud Gilberto, Nara Leão,
Roberto Menescal, Elis Regina, Carlos Lyra, The Tamba Trio, Os Cariocas and Vinicius de Moraes singing their musical renditions.
The bars, clubs, airwaves and streets around the world were caught up in the new beat, and Brazil was finding her rightful
place in the musical world. Little did we know that the chance meeting of west-coast cool jazz and samba would lead to this
wonderful, seductive and sophisticated sound of this new beat.
Many of the original composers and singers of this movement have passed on, but surely have
not been forgotten. Other forms of music have replaced it...but have never taken its place. There will always be room in this
world for just "one more note" of bossa nova.
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| Meet the group that started it all! |
About Bill Dee
I am a bossa nova guitarist and have over 700 original LPs
and CDs that go back to the '60‘s. My collection also contains many books, songbooks and manuscripts that
are bossa nova related. I also collect bossa nova videos (about 178 at present, which is about 71,000 feet of
film footage) that include such artists as Tom Jobim, João Gilberto, Baden Powell, Elizeth Cardoso,
Caetano Veloso, Luiz Bonfá, Sebastião Tapajos, Carlos Lyra, Vinicius de
Moraes, Laurindo Almeida, Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, Bola Sete, Nara Leão, Wanda Sá, Toquinho,
Elis Regina, Roberto Menescal and others.
During the '70's I made three trips to Rio de Janeiro to enjoy Carnaval and lived
there for about eleven months. Bossa nova has always been the light that guides me. The softness and emotional content
of its sound...is why this site exists. I have reached out across the waters to Norway, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal,
Great Britain, Spain, Switzerland, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Hawaii, Russia, Singapore, Greece, Peru, Puerto Rico and
Japan, to find friends who share this phenomenon called bossa nova. I am very impressed with finding out that this movement
is world-wide and continues to grow. I receive lots of inquiries about bossa nova. Some asking which are the best CDs
or old LPs to purchase, what books to read and where they can buy lyrics and written music.
I am looking for people who have their own bossa nova videos,
original film footage or TV recordings, in order to build up my collection, in hope that at some point in time, it
will turn out to be one of the largest bossa nova video archives that can be used for historical reference, in the world. Film
footage once held as archives in Brazil are lost forever due to a fire many years ago. I am attempting to restore
it as much as possible with the help of others, so that much of its historical significance can be saved for future
generations to view. This is an undertaking of huge proportions and very much worth the effort. At some
point in time the entire archive will be donated to an appropriate concern that will keep it forever as an important historical
reference and in safekeeping. The bossa nova was too important a movement in the history of Brazilian music to be forgotten. My
mission is to keep it alive and thriving.
Aside from my love of bossa nova, I enjoy classical music, opera, jazz, hiking,
art, nature, science, archaeology, fine wine, sculpting, birding, foreign films, and digging for fossils. I also started
two groups in Seattle, Dua Bossa and Passarim. The latter is still thriving although I am no longer involved.
Bill playing a few Luiz Bonfã tunes!
Click here to email William Dee
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