At the second International Song Festival in 1967, Milton Nascimento had three songs accepted for competition. He had no intention of performing them--he hated the idea of intense competition. In fact, Nascimento might never have appeared at all if Eumir Deodato hadn't threatened not to write the arrangements for his songs if he didn't perform at least two of them. Nascimento went on to win the festival's best performer award, all three of his songs were included soon afterward on his first album, and the rest is history. This is only one anecdote from The Brazilian Sound, an encyclopedic survey of Brazilian popular music that ranges over samba, bossa nova, MPB, jazz and instrumental music and tropical rock, as well as the music of the Northeast. The authors have interviewed a wide variety of performers like Nascimento, Gilberto Gil, Carlinhos Brown, and Airto Moreira, U.S. fans, like Lyle Mays, George Duke, and Paul Winter, executive André Midani; and music historian Zuza Homem de Mello, just to name a few. First published in 1991, The Brazilian Sound received enthusiastic attention both in the United States and abroad. For this new edition, the authors have expanded their examination of the historical roots of Brazilian music, added new photographs, amplified their discussion of social issues like racism, updated the maps, and added a new final chapter highlighting the most recent trends in Brazilian music. The authors have expanded their coverage of the axé music movement and included profiles of significant emerging artists like Marisa Monte, Chico Cesar, and Daniela Mercury. Clearly written and lavishly illustrated with 167 photographs, The Brazilian Sound is packed with facts, explanations, and fascinating stories. For the Latin music aficionado or the novice who wants to learn more, the book also provides a glossary, a bibliography, and an extensive discography containing 1,000 entries. Author note: Chris McGowan was a contributing writer and columnist for Billboard from 1984 to 1996 and pioneered that publication's coverage of Brazilian and world music in the mid-1980s. He has written about the arts and other subjects for Musician, The Beat, the Hollywood Reporter, the Los Angeles Times, L. A Weekly, and the Los Angeles Reader. He is the author of Entertainment in the Cyber Zone: Exploring the Interactive Universe of Multimedia (1995) and was a contributor to The Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture (1996). Ricardo Pessanha has worked as a teacher, writer, editor, and management executive for CCAA, one of Brazil's leading institutes of English-language education. He has served as a consultant to foreign journalists and scholars on numerous cultural projects relating to Brazil. He has contributed articles about Brazilian music to The Beat and other publications.

Bossa nova is one of the most popular musical genres in the world. Songs such as “The Girl from Ipanema” (the fifth most frequently played song in the world), “The Waters of March,” and “Desafinado” are known around the world. Bossa Nova—a number-one bestseller when originally published in Brazil as Chega de Saudade—is a definitive history of this seductive music. Based on extensive interviews with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Jo+o Gilberto, and all the major musicians and their friends, Bossa Nova explains how a handful of Rio de Janeiro teenagers changed the face of popular culture around the world. Now, in this outstanding translation, the full flavor of Ruy Castro’s wisecracking, chatty Portuguese comes through in a feast of detail. Along the way he introduces a cast of unforgettable characters who turned Gilberto’s singular vision into the sound of a generation.

From the mid-20th century to present, the Brazilian art, literature, and music scene have been witness to a wealth of creative approaches involving sound. This is the backdrop for Making It Heard: A History of Brazilian Sound Art, a volume that offers an overview of local artists working with performance, experimental vinyl production, sound installation, sculpture, mail art, field recording, and sound mapping. It criticizes universal approaches to art and music historiography that fail to recognize local idiosyncrasies, and creates a local rationale and discourse. Through this approach, Chaves and Iazzetta enable students, researchers, and artists to discover and acknowledge work produced outside of a standard Anglo-European framework.

Throughout Brazil, Afro-Brazilians face widespread racial prejudice. Many turn to religion, with Afro-Brazilians disproportionately represented among Protestants, the fastest-growing religious group in the country. Officially, Brazilian Protestants do not involve themselves in racial politics. Behind the scenes, however, the community is deeply involved in the formation of different kinds of blackness—and its engagement in racial politics is rooted in the major new cultural movement of black music. In this highly original account, anthropologist John Burdick explores the complex ideas about race, racism, and racial identity that have grown up among Afro-Brazilians in the black music scene. By immersing himself for nearly a year in the vibrant worlds of black gospel, gospel rap, and gospel samba, Burdick pushes our understanding of racial identity and the social effects of music in new directions. Delving into the everyday music-making practices of these scenes, Burdick shows how the creative process itself shapes how Afro-Brazilian artists experience and understand their racial identities. This deeply detailed, engaging portrait challenges much of what we thought we knew about Brazil’s Protestants,provoking us to think in new ways about their role in their country’s struggle to combat racism.

A solid and extremely valuable guide to applying traditional Brazilian rhythms to drumset. It delves into the complexities of Brazilian rhythms and also helps explain the background and influences of the rich musical history of Brazil. Includes samba, partito alto, bossa nova, baiao, caterete, maracatu, marcha, and frevo.

In 1992, James Woodall was asked to write an article about a Brazilian musician he'd never heard of, called Chico Buarque. He discovered that Buarque was a national hero in his native country and that interviewing him was a bit like a Latin American interviewing Paul McCartney. Woodall fell under Buarque's spell and began an affair with Brazilian pop music which has lasted to this day. His new passion took him to Brazil and in particular to Rio de Janeiro, world capital of Carnival and samba. Over several visits, he met with Chico Buarque, discovered the city's immodest beach culture and took part in Carnival. He met Chico Buarque's great contemporary, Caetano Veloso and other stars. Picking up Portuguese on the hop, he learnt a great deal about Chico Buarque's life and about the strange and dangerous city where he lives. This book is as much a hymn to Rio de Janeiro as it is to the music that beats at its heart.