Bossa nova

Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music invented in the late 1950s by a group of middle-class students and musicians living in the Copacabana and Ipanema beachside districts of Rio de Janeiro. The name could be translated as "the new beat" or "the new way". In Brazil, it became well known through the record "Chega de Saudade", performed by João Gilberto and composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes. The record was released in 1958.

Origin of the term "bossa nova"

Bossa Nova of course means "New Bossa", but according to Ruy Castro, author of Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World, the word "bossa" itself was "far from new" at the time of "Chega De Saudade," and had "been used by musicians since the days of yore to define someone who played or sang differently....In 1932, Noel Rosa used the word in a samba...which went O samba, a prontidão e outras bossas/São nossas coisas, são coisas nossas (Samba, empty pockets and other bossas/Are our specialities." Castro writes that an editor in Brazil, Moysés Fuks, in 1958 wrote a program for a show featuring Roberto Menescal and other performers, and billed it as a "bossa nova evening." Castro writes, "The origin of the expression has never been completely clarified."

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