Beginner’s Guide to Bossa Nova

In a compilation market saturated to cholesterol strength, Nascente are usually a healthy alternative, compiled by people who know their stuff. If you’re a bossa nova novice, this long view of the genre’s gestation, flowering and offshoots, certainly offers context, with erudite and entertaining liner notes providing lively anecdotes of exasperated, vinyl-snapping record execs. DJ John Armstrong goes way back into the vaults of EMI Odeon in search of bossa’s primordial ooze amid genteel 1950s string sections and smooth crooning. While the movie Black Orpheus is often considered bossa’s ground zero, Armstrong cannily selects ‘Se Todos Fossem Iguais A Voce, performed by tenor Roberto Paiva, from the soundtrack to the film’s 1956 stage¬show predecessor, Orfeu Da Conçeição. Granted, it’s a long way from bossa’s patented sound. But it gives a real sense of a fertile scene, alongside Elizete Cardoso’s choro-tinged touchstone ‘Chega De Saudade’, torch-song ballads from Sylvia Telles, a big-band hybrid from a Luiz Eça and the lesser-heard likes of Maysa and Norma Benguell. A later, somewhat unlikely, recording of Johnny Alf performing Egberto Gismonti’s ‘Saudações’ would probably have fitted more snugly among the familiar suspects of the second disc, wherein different interpretations of songs are placed back-to-back. This keeps things interesting – we get to hear a minimalist version of ‘Balango Zona Sul’ from Bossa Tres before a maximalist version from Elza Soares. Other highlights include Perry Ribeiro’s take on ‘O Canto De Ossanha’, an instrumental, ‘Agua de Beber’, from late Ipanemas guitarist Neco, and the overdubbed utterings of João Donato on his evergreen ‘A Ra’. All in, a solid primer.