| Abstract: | Brazilian rhythms have enjoyed wide popularity in this country for many years, but Americans who delight in the samba and other sounds are generally unfamiliar with the development and special characteristics of this national music. In his paper, Gerard Béhague studies the main trends of Brazilian popular music associated with the bossa nova. In particular, he examines the music's socio-cultural meaning for producers and consumers, its relationship to or influence from foreign models, and the various cultural values that it expresses. He traces the original bossa nova phenomenon of the late 1950s, emphasizing that its cultivators, who were from upper-middle-class families, developed a somewhat elitist urban popular musical trend. Contrary to many critics' opinions, bossa nova did not result from jazz or imitations of other imported styles. Thematically, early bossa nova differed little from the samba, a trulypopular music. However, bossa nova's poFtic substance and treatment did reveal significant innovations. Béhague asserts that after 1964, a new social awareness developed among bossa nova musicians. He discusses the musical compositions of the musician-poet Chico Buarque who, more than earlier bossa nova musicans, established a clear link with the traditional samba of the 1930s and 1940s, thus giving bossa nova an euen more popular character. The author also reviews the work of the group of musician-poet-performers of the mid-1960s known as the Tropicdia. Their music adhered to the basic concepts of modernismo, a Brazilian literary movement of the 1920s. |
