One of the founders of the bossa nova, the Brazilian Joao Gilberto, died this Saturday at the age of 88 in Rio de Janeiro, his relatives confirmed.” My father died. His struggle was noble, he tried to maintain dignity even with the loss of independence,” wrote his son Joao Marcelo Gilberto, who lives in the United States. The musician left two other descendants: Bebel and Luisa.Joao Gilberto has many songs that are considered a musical treasure, but the most important in his musical career are Desafinado, Garota de Ipanema, Chega de saudade, Rosa Morena, Corcovado and Aquarela Brazil.
Gilberto synthesized alongside a collective of artists, that aesthetic movement that, in the ’50s, he deserved at the birth of the bossa nova and which was fed by elements of samba and also jazz. It was the expression of a modernist influence that they promoted, more than any other, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes.The specialists located the birth of the bossa nova with the album “Cancao do amor demais”, released in 1958 with creations by the duo Tom Jobim and Vinicius of Moraes and where the song “Chega de saudade” appears, consecrated as the foundational piece of this aesthetic. A while later, Gilberto recorded his first album, called “Chega de Saudade”, which was a success in Brazil and boosted his career. Vinicius, perhaps the most renewing link in that process, recognized that this fledgling movement abandoned the blaming and advanced in the styling of popular traditions; a process that exceeded music and included Mario de Andrade, Jorge Amado and Graciliano Ramos. He was born on June 10, 1931 in Juazeiro. He learned to play in a self-taught way.
In 1950, he emigrated to the city of Rio de Janeiro, where he had some success singing in the band Garotos da Lua, but was expelled for rebellion and spent some years without work although with the pertinacity of creating a new form of musical expression with guitar. The realization of that ambition was possible when he met Jobim.
He was responsible for a revolution in the way he sang and played the guitar that changed everything in Brazilian music. Transgressive in appearance, at first, but – however – precise and conciliable with all kinds of songs. He got the guitar and vocals confused to the point of not being able to dissociate.
With airs of legend it is said that, before the event of the bossa, Gilberto lived for six months in his sister’s house in Minas Gerais, time when – according to the story – he did not leave his house, spoke little and spent the nights hugging the guitar in search of rhythms and harmonies that would end up definitively shaping a new style. “It was an influence for a whole generation of arrangers, guitarists, musicians and singers,” Jobim once defined.Then came an international success and the consolidation of a style. His preferred format for going on stage was alone, in a suit and tie, with a stool and guitar. He cultivated a relationship with the highly demanding and respectful audience and often called his audience into silence to create the conditions for him to light the music. He had been eaway from the spotlight for many years, eaten up by debtands and family problems. In March he won a copyright trial for his first albums for which he had to pay 40 million euros.
