Brazilian Jazz

From JAZZ The Complete Story....Brazilian Jazz. "In the mid 1950s, a cultural crossfertilization of Brazilian samba rhythms, American cool jazz and sophisticated harmonies led to the development of bossa nova. In the early 1960s the bossa nova movement swept through the United States and Europe producing a strain of Brazilian-influenced jazz that remains a vital part of the jazz scene.

By the early 1950s, a few pioneering Brazilian composers began listening seriously to American jazz, particularly the limpid-toned west coast variety practiced by Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan and Shorty Rogers. In absorbing that cool influence, composers such as Antonio Carlos Jobim, Joao Gilberto, Baden Powell and Luiz Bonfa stripped the complex polyrhythms of Afro-Brazilian samba down to their undulating essence and offered a more intimate approach, in which melodies were caressed rather than belted out in the raucous Carnival fashion.

Around the same time, American jazz saxophonist Bud Shank (from the west coast branch of cool jazz) had joined forces with Brazilian guitarist Laurindo Almeida(appearing with the Modern Jazz Quartet and one of my vibraphone influences, Milt Jackson) in a quartet that blended Brazilian rhythms and folk melodies with cool jazz improvising. Recorded five years before the term 'bossa nova' was even coined, their 1953 collaboration on the World Pacific label, Brazilliance, would have a significant impact on the ultimate architects of the bossa nova movement."

Stan Getz said, on his first involvement with Brazilian music, the album Jazz
Samba, "I just thought it was pretty music. I never thought it would be a hit."

"Black Orpheus was an updating of the Orpheus & Eurydice myth, set against the background of a Brazilian Carnival. The intense vitality of the music in the film fascinated viewers and the soundtrack sold in the millions."