Bossa Nova: How Brazil’s “New Wave” Charmed the World

Few styles sound as relaxed as bossa nova. A soft voice, a nylon-string guitar and a gentle, swaying rhythm: it is the sound of seaside cafés and lazy Sunday mornings. Bossa nova means "new trend" or "new wave" in Portuguese, and in the late 1950s it was exactly that.

Rio de Janeiro in the 1950s

Bossa nova was born in the apartments and small clubs of Rio de Janeiro’s beach neighbourhoods, such as Copacabana and Ipanema. Young musicians loved Brazil’s samba but were also listening to American cool jazz. They wanted something quieter and more intimate than the big, percussion-heavy samba of carnival.

The founders

• João Gilberto (1931–2019), a singer and guitarist, created the style’s signature guitar rhythm: a soft, syncopated pattern that compresses a whole samba percussion section into one guitar. He sang almost in a whisper, without vibrato.
• Antônio Carlos "Tom" Jobim (1927–1994), a composer and pianist, wrote many of the songs, with rich chords borrowed from jazz and classical music.
• Vinícius de Moraes (1913–1980), a poet and diplomat, wrote many of the lyrics.

In 1958, singer Elizeth Cardoso recorded Jobim and de Moraes’s "Chega de Saudade" with Gilberto on guitar, and later that year Gilberto released his own version as a single. Many historians mark this as the birth of bossa nova.

Bossa nova goes global

American jazz musicians quickly fell in love with the style. Saxophonist Stan Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd released "Jazz Samba" in 1962, and the same year a bossa nova concert at Carnegie Hall in New York introduced Brazilian artists to American audiences.

The biggest moment came with "Getz/Gilberto" (1964), recorded by Stan Getz, João Gilberto and Tom Jobim. Its version of "The Girl from Ipanema", sung in English by Astrud Gilberto, became a worldwide hit, and the album won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. "The Girl from Ipanema" is now one of the most recorded songs in history.

The sound of bossa nova

• Rhythm: a gentle, syncopated pattern in 2/4 time, played with the thumb on bass notes and fingers on chords.
• Harmony: jazz chords such as major sevenths, minor sevenths and ninths, often moving smoothly by small steps.
• Melody and voice: soft, conversational singing, close to the microphone.
• Instruments: nylon-string guitar, light drums played with brushes, upright bass, piano, flute or saxophone.
• Tempo: relaxed, often between about 120 and 140 BPM, but felt in a calm two.

Classic songs

1. "Chega de Saudade" – João Gilberto (1958)
2. "Desafinado" – Jobim and Newton Mendonça
3. "Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars)" – Jobim
4. "The Girl from Ipanema" – Getz/Gilberto (1964)
5. "Wave" – Antônio Carlos Jobim (1967)
6. "Águas de Março (Waters of March)" – Elis Regina and Tom Jobim (1974)

Bossa nova’s legacy

Bossa nova shaped jazz, film music and pop around the world. Its harmonies influenced composers from Burt Bacharach to modern lo-fi producers, and "café bossa nova" playlists remain some of the most popular background music for coffee shops, work and study.

Want to play it? Try the major seventh and minor seventh chords in our chord finder, set our metronome to around 120 BPM and practise a gentle thumb-and-fingers pattern.