Origin of The Term "bossa Nova"
In Brazil, the word "bossa" is slang for doing something with particular charm, natural flair or innate ability. As early as 1932, Noel Rosa used the word in a samba:
"O samba, a prontidão e outras bossas são nossas coisas, são coisas nossas" ("The samba, the readiness and other bossas are our things, are things from us").
The exact origin of the term "bossa nova" still remains uncertain. Within the artistic beach culture of the late 1950s in Rio de Janeiro, the term "bossa" was used to refer to any new "trend" or "fashionable wave". In his book Bossa Nova, Brazilian author Ruy Castro asserts that "bossa" was already in use in the 1950s by musicians as a word to characterize someone's knack for playing or singing idiosyncratically. Castro claims that the term "bossa nova" might have first been used in public for a concert given in 1958 by the Grupo Universitário Hebraico do Brasil (University Hebrew Group of Brazil). This group consisted of Sylvinha Telles, Carlinhos Lyra, Nara Leão, Luizinho Eça, Roberto Menescal, et al. In 1959, Nara Leão also participated in more than one embryonic display of bossa nova. This included the 1st Festival de Samba Session, conducted by the PUC's (Pontifícia Universidade Católica) student union. (This session was then chaired by Carlos Diegues, a law student that Leão ultimately married.) While these early musicians were likely using the term "bossa nova" as a generic reference to this novel musical style, the term took hold as the definition of their own specific artistic creation to this day.
Read more about this topic: Bossa Nova
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