A longa arte de Tom Jobim | Ep. 3: A bossa nova

Hello. I'm Arthur Nestrovski and I'm here with the wonderful Paula Morelenbaum to talk to you about the long art of Antonio Carlos Jobim and, now, we finally arrive at the bossa nova repertoire. When I go to sing, you don't let me And the same complaint always comes up It says that I'm out of tune, that I don't know how to sing You're so beautiful But your beauty can also be deceived If you say that I'm out of tune, love Know that this causes me a lot pain Only privileged people have ears like yours I only have what God gave me If you insist on classifying The song we made here, a little bit of it is widely known, of course.

Desafinado is a partnership between Tom Jobim not with Vinicius de Moraes, but with Newton Mendonça. This is a song that has a particularly important feature. It is very evident in what we hear and it will be very important for several other bossa nova songs, which is the relationship between music and poetry, between sung poetry and melody and harmony.

Of course, here, this is a song, like Samba de Uma Nota Só, also highly ironic. One of the main ironies is that to sing Desafinado you have to be very in tune. You have to be João Gilberto or Paula Morelenbaum.

Try singing in the shower and let's see how you do. Pay attention to this melody. This is already strange.

Let's get back to that. And now? Now I challenge you.

- How is it? - Wow. .

. - But that's right. - Yeah, damn.

This is an aberrant kind of melody, to say the least. There are very rare examples of a popular song with a melody so chromatic, so cunning and so constructed, because it sounds natural to us because we are so used to hearing a song like Desafinado. But when you try to sing, you realize how much craftsmanship goes into it.

If you say I'm out of tune, love But this love has to be very in tune. It's an out-of-tune, tuned note. She makes the joke work.

Know that this causes me immense pain. Only privileged people have ears like yours. We don't even think about it because music is so well known to all of us that we don't think about what's really extravagant about it.

This had even more impact when this song appeared at the turn of the 60s. Even before: Chega de Saudade, which is also such a well-known song. It's strange for us to think, but there are countless reports from that time that people heard João Gilberto's famous recording, in 1959, of Chega de Saudade, and it was something that had never been imagined.

It was a new world that was unfolding there. Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque, everyone talks about hearing João Gilberto singing Chega de Saudade and we don't even understand why. Because it became so central in the Brazilian canon.

But you have to remember the following. Let's do Chega de Saudade as it would have been if it were a samba song or if it were a samba instead of a bossa nova. Go, my sadness And tell her that it can't be without her Tell her, in a prayer, that she returns Because I can't suffer anymore I'm doing something like Nelson Cavaquinho.

It becomes a totally different song. The melody itself is already a tortuous melody, full of curves that would not be common. Now, when you also transform the samba-canção or samba beat into the bossa nova beat.

Go, my sadness And tell her that it can't be without her Tell her, in a prayer, that she returns Because I can't suffer anymore I knew I could trust her. I can't suffer anymore It's one of those little notes too. People tend to sing 'I can suffer more' as if it were a samba, but it's 'I can suffer more'.

It's this strange note. The harmonies. .

. This isn't samba harmony. These are jazz chords or adapted impressionist chords, converted to Brazilian music.

The lyrics themselves too. Vinicius de Moraes' lyrics bring to the song's lyrics with enormous naturalness concisions and boldness and internal rhymes that would not have been common until that moment. There is yet another component, the beginning of the second part.

But if she comes back, if she comes back What a beautiful thing, what a crazy thing We've moved on from a minor key, as it's called. You feel that it is something more closed, more, let's say, dark, for something open, for a greater tonality. This will be very characteristic of Tom Jobim.

Play this game between minor keys and major keys. And again, the lyrics speak to this. But if she returns Happiness.

. . What a beautiful thing, what a crazy thing So, this game between verse and composition will be crucial for the type of song that we have become accustomed to thinking of as bossa nova songs.

They are such well-known songs and they give themselves to us so generously, so spontaneously constructed. It was Antonio Candido who said that spontaneity was Vinicius de Moraes' most wonderful construction. Vinicius de Moraes' poetry had a built-in spontaneity.

It's the same thing. These songs appear as if they were the simplest things, falling from the tree. But, in fact, when you look closely, they have a very sophisticated construction, full of these little features that I'm showing you.

And with this game between poetry and music, which was innovative, modern, but a modernity that was both advanced and light. Another very well-known example: Here's this samba Made from just one note Other notes will come in, But the base is just one This other one is a consequence Of what I just said As I am the Inevitable consequence of you What do we have here? 'Here's this samba made from just one note' and it's just one note!

It's unbelievable. Why does this work? If you just played the melody and almost, I'm tempted to put the melody in quotation marks.

Here is the melody of Samba de Uma Nota Só. It's just one note. When another one comes in.

This other one is a consequence of what I just said . And go back to the first one. As I am the inevitable consequence of you So what?

How many people are there who talk, talk and say nothing Or almost nothing I've used every scale and in the end it came to nothing There's nothing left What happened now? It's the entire musical scale. I've already used the entire musical scale.

So you went from just one note to the entire scale. And that's exactly what the lyrics are about. And har.

. . Why does it work?

Because Tom Jobim's harmonies color each note, it's the same note, but they have a meaning that evolves because the harmony moves forward. And the harmony moves in a way, too, that is typical of Tom Jobim, with countless small details. For example, guitarists play it like this.

Everything is fine, except the last chords, because what Tom Jobim wrote. . .

Now. There are two chords and not just one. It's full of these minutiae.

Now. It is full of these little things, this little poison within the harmony that creates a kind of underwater life of harmony and contributes to the senses. These are things that sometimes we don't even notice in recordings, because he himself didn't make a point of drawing attention to all these wonders that we notice when we actually look at the scores, for example, from Cancioneiro Jobim, where everything is perfectly written.

. We cannot, in our meetings here, fail to mention it, briefly, but perhaps not so briefly. The song of songs deserves a slightly more detailed comment , the best-known song of all by Tom Jobim.

More than 500 recordings worldwide to date, which is Girl from Ipanema. This is a song, again. She was so touched, she was so.

. . She became so well known to all of us that she lost part of her richness and her charm.

We were numb to the poetic and musical wonders of Girl from Ipanema. Let's just do the beginning and then I'll tell you a little about the history of this lyric, which isn't exactly a paper napkin there at Veloso. That's the myth they created.

In fact, the song took much longer to build. Look what a beautiful thing, more full of grace It's her, girl, who comes and passes In a sweet swing on the way to the sea Girl with a golden body in the sun of Ipanema Her swing is more than a poem It's the most beautiful thing I have I've already seen it go by. Let's get to part B.

One thing at a time. Firstly, this was not the first lyric that Vinicius de Moraes wrote. Several other versions, versions that didn't match the song, that didn't.

. . This song wouldn't have been a hit with the first versions, despite the myth that Vinicius himself liked to propagate, that they would have made this song in 15 minutes , seeing the girl who was passing by on the corner of Ipanema.

The story is good, but in fact this girl passing by is a theme of Vinicius de Moraes' poetry that had already been written, at least in a formally printed poem that has been in his Poetic Anthology since 1938. There is a poem by Vinicius de Moraes which is called The Woman Who Passes By, which is from 1938. And there he says the following: My God, I want the woman who passes by Her cold back is a field of lilies There are seven colors in her hair Seven hopes in her fresh mouth Continues , continues.

. . My God, I want the woman who passes by.

How I adore you woman who passes by Who comes and goes, who satiates me Within the nights, within the days Which comes and passes. This was already there in 1938, that is, he sees life there, the youth that passes from a man who is no longer young. This is actually an ancient theme.

This is in Latin poetry. This appears in the Renaissance. This will appear in the poetry of Vinicius de Moraes.

When he finally went to make Girl from Ipanema, all this legacy is there. All this poetic ancestry of others. That's what's behind it.

This is nothing less than what is behind Girl from Ipanema. At the same time, this happens in such a natural way. Now, there is another very important element.

Again, if we simply see the melody reduced to its essence, without the chords. It's nothing, right? This is characteristic of Tom Jobim's art of composition.

Starting from an element that is practically a neutral element. Few notes, two notes, three repeated notes, but providing a rhythmic design, accents and harmonies that make these minimal elements, which are not exactly a melody, the most enchanting thing. Not only that.

That melody, that kind of repeated theme, really suggests movement, doesn't it? Suggests the girl passing by. Why is the song so.

. . Moving, so captivating.

It depends on part two. Part two is crucial, because part two does something very different. [.

. . ] of the golden body, of the sun of Ipanema Your swing is more than a poem It's the most beautiful thing.

. . And now we move on.

That I've seen pass And now. . .

Ah! Why am I so alone? Oh!

Why is everything so sad? Oh! The beauty that exists The beauty that is not just mine That also passes alone It is a very different type of melody from the other.

Before, we had a girl's walk. 'Look at this', right? Look what a beautiful thing, what a thing.

. . That comes and goes.

It's the girl who is walking. Suddenly, it's like a movie scene. Here, we did a close-up, we did a close-up of the poet.

She's not the girl anymore. Here what do we have? The poet himself.

The camera turned sideways. He no longer sees the girl passing by; is looking at the man who mourns. Oh!

Why am I so alone? Oh! Why is everything so sad?

And even more. Oh! The beauty that exists The beauty that is not just mine That also passes alone And now, we return.

Oh! If she knew that when she passes by The whole world is filled with grace And becomes more beautiful because of love Because of love Because of love This is the chord he strikes. So, this song is much more than it seems when we hear it performed, let's say.

Today it doesn't even ring in the elevator anymore, but it used to. But this type of very fine, crafted, constructed relationship between poetry and composition is characteristic of bossa nova. And bossa nova, at that time, brought to the composition of urban songs in Brazil an unprecedented harmonic richness, a type of song construction work that was also unprecedented, a poetic richness that will become fundamental for the generations that come soon after.

. Because it's good to remember again that bossa nova, all these wonders were composed over a period of approximately five years and soon after we already had Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento, Tom Zé, Edu Lobo. An impressive number of young talents who were no longer bossa nova composers, although they all drew more or less directly from the poetry lessons of Vinicius de Moraes, the singing and accompaniment lessons of João Gilberto and the lessons of the greatest composer of songs from the Brazilian repertoire, Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Ah, foolishness, what have you done? A more careless heart Made your love cry in pain A love so delicate Ah, why were you so weak? So heartless?

Ah, my heart, anyone who has never loved does not deserve to be loved. But this partnership is very important for Tom Jobim, because this young partner, Chico Buarque, was incredibly old, the now octogenarian Chico Buarque was only 24 years old. And these lyrics gave, so to speak, the stimulus and impulse that Tom Jobim needed to disconnect from bossa nova.