ABOUT NOVA BOSSA NOVA

A man goes half way round the world… is about as far from home as he can get… and who does he happen to meet? Well, if it isn't the guy from down the block! He may have seen this person once before, and he thinks he's heard his name. Beyond that, he doesn't know anything about this compatriot. Moved, however, by the coincidence and perhaps by a little pang of homesickness, he strikes up a conversation with the stranger. It turns out they have a lot in common. They both, for instance, like a lot of the same music. What's more, they are both very good professional musicians. So they sit down to jam a little. They discover they sound great together. They make a vow right then and there that one day they will form a band. 20 years later, with a little help from their friends, they do. That, in brief, is the story of Nova Bossa Nova, a collection of accomplished instrumentalists, whose music seamlessly fuses the rhythms and styles of American jazz into the flow of its Brazilian cousin—bossa nova, blending the traditional Brazilian rhythm section with a hard-core jazz front-line.

The founding members of the group—percussionist Guilherme Franco and bassist Alberto Beserra, both natives of Brazil, met in Japan in 1975. On the advice of a friend, Beserra , who was living (and still lives) in Japan, went to see Franco who was a member of the touring McCoy Tyner band. After the show, roles were reversed, i.e., spectator became performer and performer turned spectator, as the entire band repaired to the club where Beserra was the featured artist. By the end of the night, the two were stationed side by side, grooving at their particular instruments. They became fast friends and have, since that night, taken advantage of every opportunity they've had to play together. Finally, in 1996, they formed Nova Bossa Nova, and signed an exclusive recording contract with New York's Arkadia Jazz. Jazz Influence is the band's first recording project.

Guilherme Franco (drums) was born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1946. He had begun dabbling with the piano when, as a 13 year old, his father took him to a party during Carnival. There, presiding over the festivities, was a drummer whose performance so impressed the young Franco that he resolved on the spot to become a drummer himself, and to learn the art from the man who had so entranced him. Within a few years, Franco was a mainstay of the São Paulo music scene. Practicing fourteen hours a day, he managed to squeeze in time for club dates, television performances, studio recordings, and periodic appearances with the national symphony orchestra. Happy and busy though he was, the young man had heard that to really play with the best, one had to go to New York. So, in 1971, answering an invitation from some musician friends, he headed north. Within a week, he had been asked to join Keith Jarrett's ensemble. After a year with Jarrett, he began a seven year affiliation with the McCoy Tyner, during which time he came to be recognized as a pioneering percussionist who introduced a new musical element to the American jazz world. The book "From Jazz to Rock," written by Jochen Berendt, documents Franco's contribution to this musical innovation with several admiring, quotable references. In 1978, Guilherme Franco was acclaimed by both the Down Beat Magazine Reader's and Critic's polls as the Number two jazz percussionist in the world. And in 1979, the "New York Jazz Award" also acclaimed him as the "Best Jazz Percussionist" in the tri-state area.

Having mastered, and perhaps grown a little tired of, the American jazz idiom, Franco turned his thoughts back to his native country, and in 1981 he formed a band called Pe De Boi, a Portuguese term whose literal translation is "foot of an ox," but which really means, at least when applied to music, someone who has an uncanny sense of rhythm, who doesn't rush, nor fall behind, but is swinging always with the beat. Composed of 7 drummers and 2 dancers, Pe De Boi became a fixture on the New York scene. It was the featured band at the opening night in 1982 of the wildly successful club, S.O.B.'s (Sounds of Brazil). At its peak level in 1989, the band recorded a CD, which is currently being mastered and reissued on the Arkadia Jazz label.

Born in the north of Brazil, Alberto Beserra (6-string bass) moved to Rio at the age of ten. Memories of the north and its different musical traditions still, he says, find their way into his music. The son of an amateur saxophonist and guitar-player, Beserra began his musical education with the clarinet. Then, one day, unable to resist the temptation to fiddle with his father's guitar—it was strictly off-limits —the eleven-year-old Beserra made his father very angry by "stealing" the instrument and attempting to make music with it. After getting over his initial anger, the elder Beserra agreed that maybe his son was on to something, and agreed to teach the naughty child how to play the guitar for real. And so, Beserra exchanged his clarinet for a guitar. As a teenager, Beserra came to the bass by accident, when he filled in for a fellow band-member who failed to show up. At seventeen, he began to play professionally in clubs around Rio and to make a name for himself in the local music scene. In 1969, with his bass firmly in tow, Beserra toured Portugal and Spain. A year and half later he was on his way to South Africa, where he played for five years. The money was good there, but the social climate—Apartheid was still firmly entrenched—something less than attractive. Returning to Brazil in 1975, Beserra was again faced with an unpleasant reality—this time in the form of a military dictatorship which had taken control of his native country. Resolving to get away, he accepted an invitation to go to Japan. By then he had switched to a six-string bass, after a brief fling with a five-stringer. The greater range afforded by the extra two strings allows Beserra to give his playing a guitar-like quality. Planning to stay in Japan for six months, he has remained there to this day, having established himself as one of the elite members of the kinetic Japanese music scene.

As might be expected of two such well-traveled musicians, Beserra and Franco have managed to pick up a lot of new things along the way. The most significant of their acquisitions is American jazz. Playing with Jarrett and McCoy Tyner, Franco spent nearly a decade assimilating jazz rhythms and manners, adding, of course, his own unique spin. Beserra too, has more often than not found himself listening to and playing with jazz musicians, from around the world. Still, no matter how far they wander, neither has lost contact with his roots. In founding Pe De Boi, Franco had sought to create a band in the image of the great Brazilian percussion tradition, specifically the practice of incorporating as many as 100 drums into one massive rhythmic orchestra. Beserra, who spent some of his years in Japan playing with a band called Rio, clearly maintains a love for the bossa nova style made popular during the 50s and 60s in Brazil. The songs on Jazz Influence, many of which were written by Beserra, are almost all grounded in bossa nova time.

In the same way that Franco and Beserra have found their backgrounds serving as a net with which they have been able to collect influence and inspiration, their band, Nova Bossa Nova, incorporates a hardcore be-bop style front-line into the framework provided by a traditional Brazilian rhythm section. The musicians that have been enlisted to join the band sport distinct and varied sounds. Claudio Rodito (trumpet), another Brazilian living in the United States, combines technical excellence and a distinctive jazz style, with a thorough knowledge of Brazilian syncopation. Eddie Monteiro (accordion/vocalese) plays in a style inspired by the famous Brazilian master Sivuca, which features vocal improvisations that blend with improvisations on the accordion itself. Then there is Bob Mintzer (tenor sax), a renowned musician, a great orchestrator, the leader of his own big band, and a member of the Yellowjackets. His is a very modern jazz style. There is also Joe Ford, (flute and alto/soprano sax), who played with Franco when both were members of the McCoy Tyner band. Atsushi Inoue, an accomplished Japanese pianist who has frequently collaborated with Beserra brings his own take on things to the group.

Diverse and eclectic as nova bossa Nova may be, the most remarkable thing about the group is not its variety, but its unity. They are a band of irregulars who march together and in step. Anchored by Franco's drums and Beserra's bass, the ensemble members are, in the best traditions of bossa nova and jazz, locked in with each other. That the two should be combined so effectively is no surprise to co-leader Franco. "They both come from the same place; jazz and bossa nova both have their roots in Africa. They are like cousins. It's only natural that they get along."