From Ipanema to the World: The Swingy Journey of Brazilian Music

Music is Brazil’s leading cultural export product. Since the introduction of the Bossa Nova, in the late 1950s, Brazilian composers and players have received worldwide exposure and recognition. Today Bossa Nova’s influence on jazz is broadly acknowledged, and there is an enormous output of recordings made by great American musicians, among them Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Herbie Hancock, Frank Sinatra, Stan Getz, Toots Thielemans, etc. This presentation will focus on Bossa Nova as a pivotal cultural moment, when Brazilian music shifted from being a raw musical material provider to a fully finished product exporter.