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CHAPTER FIVE: ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT
In the 1930s, Brazilian music found its way north when Brazilian love songs
became popular in the United States. Yet, those songs would never be as pop-
ular as the bossa nova. In 1958, the bossa nova, a fusion of samba and jazz,
rocked the music world. Musicians generally performed the bossa nova on gui-
tar, but instead of the plucking the strings with a pick, players strummed the
guitar with their fingers.
BOSSA NOVA HIT
You might not have heard of "The Girl from Impenema" before, but
back in 1962, it helped fuel the bossa nova craze. Songwriters Antonio
Carlos Jobim and Vinícius deMoraes wrote the song after they were inspired by
an eighteen-year-old named Heloisa Pinto who the composers saw walking by
one day in Rio. They put music to paper and came up with a melody and lyrics.
“Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking . . .” the
song begins. It was a hit. The song topped out at No. 5 in the United States.
The samba is probably the most well-
known dance and musical genre to emerge
from Brazil. It has its roots in West African
religious traditions, although many people
consider the samba a unique expression of
Brazilian culture. Today, it is a popular ball-
room dance, in which a couple uses rapid
foot movements as they rock and sway their
bodies around the dance floor.
Brazilian music has also been influ-
enced by North America and Europe. In the
1960s, Brazilian musicians created the
trop-
icália
style, which some consider one of
the most important musical movements to
take root in the country. The style of music
developed when Brazil was under dictato-
rial control. The
tropicália
embraced the
same counter-culture activism found at the
Brazilian musician Carlinhos Brown
plays at a concert in Barcelona, Spain,
in 2003.