I still remember the day my dad picked up the CD of Brazilian lounge music at the grocery store checkout line. Absentmindedly, he tossed it in the cart like one would a tin of Altoids or a pack of gum. I was probably about 7 at the time, utterly unaware that these twelve songs would become the backdrop to nearly every activity in the Almeda family household. Filled with classic and remixedbossa nova music, my parents would put it on during birthday parties, while we were cleaning the house and even in the mornings while we munched on bowls of Honey Bunches of Oats before rushing off to school.
It’s funny — when people ask me what my favorite genre of music is, I catch myself rotating between soul, funk and indie, depending on my mood that day. It was only after I had a conversation about bossa nova music with a friend this past week, though, did I realize my deep attachment to this genre. In relistening to this CD this week, I could feel myself getting a little emotional. Though it’s hard to place the feeling exactly, but put simply: When I hear bossa nova, I think of home. Recently, I did some Googling to find the original CD we used to listen to and when I did, it was not just the music but the cover itself, a cartoonish vignette of partygoers lounging on a low, mossy green couch with mountains in the background, that made me feel like a kid again.
How fortuitous it was to then watch Bebel Gilberto’s NPR Tiny Desk (Home) concert, filmed in herapartment in Rio de Janeiro, and to see the same kind of low green couch and windows looking out onto a soaring mountainscape. Gilberto, a Brazilianvocalist, is the daughter of João Gilberto, one of the progenitors of bossa nova. Accompanying her in the livestream was Chico Brown, son of Carlinhos Brown and grandson of Chico Barque, both acclaimed Brazilian musicians. As she eased into the first song of her set, a new release titled “Cliché” (2020), I immediately recognized her voice from one of my favorite tracks on the CD, “August Day Song” (2000). Her voice is dipped in nostalgia, tinted with a distinctly smoky and covered quality. After “Cliché,” she played another new song, “Na Cara” (2020) and ended with a bossa nova classic, “Aganju” (2004). The performance was fun, romantic and sultry all at once as she smiled and swayed around her apartment, her dog puttering around in the background.
It might just be me, but I’ve hit that point in the semester where I start to feel a little homesick. Though sometimes I’ll review a livestream I already know and I love, for this week’s column I actively sought out bossa nova. I’ve built a routine of entrenching myself in the music of the livestream in anticipation of writing the pieces, and was certain that listening to this genre would bring me a dose of home that I needed — and I was right. As cliché as it may sound, the effects of music are truly tangible, and this week, I felt that on a personal level.
