Reinterpreting Bossa Nova: Instances of Translation of Bossa Nova in the United States, 1962-1974

Abstract

This thesis examines how a number of artists, music producers and translators of song lyrics contributed in different ways to the musical style known as bossa nova in the United States, in the period between 1962 and 1974. The case studies it encompasses are motivated by the central question of how these creative individuals have understood, and subsequently represented, bossa nova -- which is treated here as a cultural constellation including both sound and social connotations -- as they tried to make it suitable for understanding, appreciation and consumption in U.S. contexts. Drawing on fields ranging from postcolonial studies, popular music studies and literary theory, the case studies discuss the considerations of these individual actors in this process of cultural translation in close detail. The first case study focuses on the production and packaging of bossa nova recordings by Verve Records, under the artistic direction of Creed Taylor, in the years 1962-1967. The second case study describes the engagement of U.S. jazz musicians with the style, and offers an analysis of Horace Silver's "Song for My Father," a jazz composition inspired by the encounters with bossa nova musicians in Rio de Janeiro. The final case study concentrates on the practice of translating bossa nova song lyrics for Anglophone audiences, and concludes, by way of culturally specific readings, that the English-language adaptation of Antônio Carlos Jobim's "Águas de março" ("Waters of March") was specifically written to appeal to non-Brazilian listeners. The case studies demonstrate that bossa nova should be seen as a discursive formation rather than a coherent tradition, and that considerations of recognizability, adaptability, comprehensibility and marketability eventually determined how the musical idiom and its meanings were transformed in the U.S.

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