In this first part of the Bossa Nova piano series, we dive into the rhythmic foundation that defines the style. Drawing from João Gilberto’s iconic guitar patterns, we translate those rhythms to the ...

Five decades ago the first recording featuring the bossa nova beat created by guitarist João Gilberto was released in Brazil. The record wasn’t by an artist who’s now commonly associated with the ...

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazilian composer and pianist João Donato, who helped lay the groundwork for bossa nova but throughout his career defied confinement to any single genre, died Monday. He was 88. His ...

Nobody is sure just what it is, or even what its name implies: according to various experts, the Portuguese slang expression bossa nova can mean “the latest thing” or “the new beat” or “the new ...

Astrud Gilberto didn’t set out to be an ambassador of bossa nova, the laid-back Brazilian musical genre with rhythms recognizable to music lovers around the world. According to Gilberto, who died on ...

I was living with my father in Malaysia when he took me to his film club to see Black Orpheus. The 1959 award-winning film, made by French director Marcel Camus, tells the tragic story of an ...

In 1959, an unassuming guitarist/vocalist named João Gilberto from the Brazilian state of Bahia started a quiet revolution with his recordings "Chega de Saudade (No More Blues)" and "Desafinado (Off ...