Brasil, Brasil 1: Samba To Bossa (17 of 20)

Brasil, Brasil

Rio was wonderful.
There was The Bottles Bar where I started playing.
There was a trio and everybody used to come there every night and there was a club on the end of the street called The Little Club.
And we did jam sessions there and every jazz musician that would come to Rio would stop by.
And, you know, it was just wonderful times, the early '60s in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro.

Jazz had been one of the influences on bossa and now jazz and bossa began to mix, a fusion helped by the US State Department when it sponsored jazz musicians like Charlie Byrd and Herbie Mann to visit Brazil where they would end up playing in Bottles' Alley.
I think the reason that jazz musicians like bossa nova is because every voice follows a path and it makes sense, not only the melody, but the harmonies also, singing the song also.
It 's because it came from classical music.
The way to spread the voice is around the chromatics.
When Charlie Byrd returned home to the States, he enthused about bossa to his friend, the saxophonist, Stan Getz.
And in April 1962, the two of them released Jazz Samba, reworking Joao Gilberto and Jobim songs like Desafinado.
Remarkably for a jazz album, it became a best-seller and stayed in the American charts for a quite astonishing 70 weeks.