# To me, this is a perfect song...



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

... and I felt like sharing it with TC today. Bossa nova seems to be neglected on this forum, which is a real pity. It's an astoundingly beautiful genre. The harmonies, the rhythms (!), the melodies, the moods, the beautiful language of Portuguese... I love pretty much everything about it. And if I had to choose a favorite song to represent the genre, this might be it.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed that a lot.

I listen to (electronic) bossa / latin club music sometimes and it always lifts my spirits. Simply because it's so... _sunny_.

Here's a favorite of mine:


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

I think this one is quite sentimental


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

as we are in bossa mood, this is one of my favourites penned by Jobim. Such beautiful harmonic progressions...The drummer plays the classic bossa rhythm.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)




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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

In this song the beautiful melody is whistled and harmonized, with some great acoustic and electric guitar accompaniment and bass.


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## arthro (Mar 12, 2013)

You'd have to get another singer other than Elis to sing that part for me to evaluate the song properly,


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)




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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Another favorite Jobim tune.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

arthro said:


> You'd have to get another singer other than Elis to sing that part for me to evaluate the song properly,


Try this:






Wonderful metric displacement. Completely blew my mind the first time I heard it. Still does...


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Another great cover:


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Another nice cover:


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

This is the Jobim album that premiered "The Waters of March"

View attachment 153166


_Matita Perê_ (1973)

The entire album is excellent with some other great songs and also some symphonic works which show a different side of Jobim.

I love Brazilian music, Bossa Nova, MPB, the Tropicalia - great, great stuff. I was fortunate to work with some Brazilian bands in New York and learned a lot about their interpretation of "the beat".


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

SanAntone said:


> I was fortunate to work with some Brazilian bands in New York and learned a lot about their interpretation of "the beat".


Could you expand on this a little? I'm curious.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Could you expand on this a little? I'm curious.


Until I played with Brazilian musicians I had a superficial concept of how to play bossa nova and samba. I played bass, which has a specific role in a Brazilian band. While the guitar, drums and piano play very much in front of the beat the bass has a specific role to lay down a basic beat: short down beat, the "one" (sometimes anticipated, sometimes left out altogether)) and long back beat the "three", which is also syncopated by sometimes accentuating the fourth beat . Of course the best players do a lot more than that but that pulse is underneath the overall beat.

This is simulation of the surdo drum beat in a samba band.






And here it is in a well known song.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Yes, I like this style a lot, Jobim was one of the first jazz artists that really caught my ear.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

The more I explore Brazilian music, the more I realize just how staggeringly vast the pool of talented musicians and beautiful music is from there that - for whatever reason - practically goes unnoticed in America. Not to wax poetic, but there's something about this music that deeply resonates with me. It's like the essence of life itself.

Tonight I listened to this beautiful performance on repeat for about 3 hours; only got better every time:


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Here is the English translation of the lyrics to that song, by the way:



> God, help me, our love is over
> Forgive me, I know I did something wrong
> But I don't know what exactly made things change so suddenly
> What did I do wrong?
> ...


The combination of music and lyrics is really something special. I don't want to get too specific as I understand this is a matter of personal sentiment, and I don't want to bias how others hear the song. But to me it's really special.


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