the new beat history

In the early 1950s, Brazilian musicians including Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, and Luíz Bonfa, were exposed to jazz records from the popular West Coast, or cool jazz style. By the late 1950s, these musicians had blended elements of the Brazilian samba rhythm, commonly heard in parades and street music, with the delicate sound and harmonic approach of cool jazz, creating a charming and subdued, but harmonically advanced "bossa nova" (translation: "new beat") style. The early 1960s was a period of transition for jazz and popular music. The impact of great American songwriters, including Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Hoagy Carmichael, and Jerome Kern, whose careers began in "Tin Pan Alley" at the turn of the century, was dissipating. The popularity of hard bop and other strains of jazz in the 1950s began to wane by the early 1960s with declining record sales and nightclub attendance. Prior to the British invasion by the Beatles and the development of the Motown sound that eventually swept the record industry, the bossa nova emerged as a new musical direction in both jazz and popular genres. In 1962, the bossa nova was introduced to America by guitarist Charlie Byrd, who had toured Brazil and became immersed in the idiom. His recording with saxophonist Stan Getz, Jazz Samba, became an immediate popular success, spawning the birth of the bossa nova style. Soon other jazz musicians, including saxophonists Coleman Hawkins and Sonny Rollins and flutist Herbie Mann, began making bossa nova recordings. By the mid-1960s, bossa nova compositions including Jobim's "Girl From Ipanema" and "Wave" had become standard within the jazz repertoire. Today, a new generation of Brazilian musicians continue to weave floating melodies and hypnotic grooves founded in the bossa nova style. Current artists include Vinicius Cantuária, Ivan Lins, Djavan, Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento, Sergio Mendes, Eliane Elias, Sitti(philippines)