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Bossa Nova

The Bar @ the Top

About Bossa Nova Bar

Located on the second floor of the building directly above Café do Brasil, Bossa Nova was created by Ana Davis’ love and inspiration by Brasil’s music. Her vision was to have a “Perfect place for people to fall in love.” With that in mind she created Bossa Nova with a resemblance of what the bars in Brazil looked like during that era, she was able to bring that back with one difference: the bars in Brasil where Bossa Nova started were located in the basements of the buildings where musicians, poets and anti- government activists gathered to express themselves.

Bossa Nova was created in the late 1950s during a period of political change and economic growth, Bossa Nova has been often described as the music of the Brazilian middle and upper classes. This music style originated in the wealthy neighborhoods that sprouted along the beaches of the city of Rio de Janeiro and both its music and lyrics were composed by middle and upper-class musicians and marketed to the same economic group.

Composers often spoke of love, the beach and beautiful women and seemed to be a depiction of the authors’ bohemian lives rather than the tales of Brazilians’ daily struggles as usually happened with samba, a music genre popular among the working class.
The music that accompanied the first wave of Bossa Nova lyrics, while unique, used the same altered chords found in jazz music combined with the drum beat characteristic of samba.

Ironically, Bossa Nova, the music style associated with complacence is also considered responsible for the birth of the protest music of the 1960s that denounced the political uproar Brazil found itself in that which led to the military coup of 1964. Critical of the insipid character of Bossa Nova lyrics and influenced by the precarious political and economic situation of Brazil, artists started using music to voice their opinions and as a vehicle to teach the largely uneducated Brazilian population about their country’s then current social, political and economic status.

Following the coup of 1964, a new generation of Bossa Nova musicians emerged. The music they composed was radically different from that created by the first generation of Bossa Nova musicians and depicted the plight of the Brazilian population and denounced the country’s newly installed military government. In addition, this new type of Bossa Nova music had a nationalistic character that its predecessor lacked. This new wave of Bossa Nova musicians not only sung about the hardships of Brazilians, but also about the life in the drought-stricken northeastern region of the country; the music they composed to accompany their lyrics also made use of traditional Brazilian instruments and borrowed from other genres of Brazilian music like the type of samba heard in the urban slums. But in spite of the differences that distinguish them from one another, both styles of Bossa Nova are intrinsically linked to Brazil’s history and reflect  the historic period in which they were created: one born during a time of growth and the other created in a time of struggle.