Books about Brazilian Music

I'm amazed there hasn't already been such a thread... so here goes:

I'm looking for English-language books about Brazilian music (German language also welcome). In particular something (readable) about Bossa Nova would be nice. I've already read the following:

Claus Schreiner - _Musica Brasileira_ --- fairly good, but a bit too unjudgemental. It's just matter of fact, straight forward. Gives a good background on varied styles, but doesn't help in navigating anything interesting (without extended effort).

Chris McGowan / Ricard Pessanha - _The Brazilian Sound_ --- again fairly academic. But useful.

Caetano Veloso - _Tropical Truth_ --- Quite nicely written, though severely lacking in a full-book approach. Still quite informative and a good read.

Ruy Castro - _Boss Nova_ --- This seems like it could be the most informative English-language book on Bossa Nova, yet it reads like it's written by Uncle Leo and is the worst fucking thing I've ever tried to slog through. At the moment I've only made it through a handful of chapters. It's just that annoying. Someone needs to edit it into something possible to read. I cringe at the thought of opening it again, and yet I really want to absorb the knowledge contained inside it.

If you like album covers:
http://static.booko.com.au/images/covers/1/4/7/1/9780955481741.jpg

Those are the ones I know of. So you've gone through all the Brazilian threads here? Here are 2 of 'em:

bossa nova: S&D

Brazilian Music

Christopher Dunn - Brutality Garden: Tropicalia and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture

A bit dry, but loads of good information.

Is this Christopher Dunn book about music? I thought it was mostly about visual art?

I'm not interested in a coffee table book of album covers --- history. Well-told history that doesn't just skim the surface. The Ruy Castro book is incredibly detailed, it's just painful to read since it's so poorly written.

I've looked through all the Brazilian threads. I'm kinda surprised that the interest/knowledge of Brazilian music displayed here in the past is fairly superficial. Was there not a thread where people discussed how they didn't recognize more than a few names on the Brazilian Rolling Stone's top 100 Brazilian records? But again... I'm looking for books, not threads. I can't read a thread on my morning commute.

Sorry no one knowledgeable enough has posted here for you

The Dunn book is about music, politics, art, etc. It talks about the conditions that spawned Tropicalia, it's brief flourish, and immediate aftermath.

There are some decent reviews out there if you want more detail.

Are you really that surprised Daniel? Is it really so strange?

It's a little strange given the sheer amount of genres in Brazilian music, the large output, and that they are genres that are popular amongst record collectors as badges of coolness.

This thesis is surprisingly informative:
http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1497&context=etd_hon_theses

I totally dug the Ruy Castro book myself, don't get the "poorly written" complaint

I wonder if it improved on translation. Did you read it in Portuguese, Daniel?

Ha

No... I figure it's probably OK in Portuguese. I'm reading it English. It gets a bit better towards the middle, but is still full of awful writing. "And who do you think walked through the door? Why, it was Joao Gilberto. And what do you think he was holding in his hand? A guitar! And he played it!"

Chris McGowan / Ricard Pessanha - _The Brazilian Sound_ --- again fairly academic. But useful.

A book that hasn't been mentioned yet on this thread is Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil, bu Bryan McCann, which I recently got. This actually is a little more academic in that it has a thesis to promote, an interesting one, about how Brazilian music, particularly samba is intimately connected with a sense of Brazilian identity, and how various parties, including intellectuals, the Brazilian state and of course the songwriters interacted to impose their idea of what samba and therefore "Brazilianness" meant. Along the way there are very detailed well-presented discussions of how various songs were written and became popular. Have only read about a third of it, but recommend it highly.

Did any New Yorkers here see author Dunn talk at NYU Monday the 11th?

I see that in addition to Brutality Garden, Dunn is co-editor with Charles Perrone of Brazilian Popular Music and Globalization (Routledge, 2001) and co-editor with Idelber Avelar of Brazilian Popular Music and Citizenship (Duke UP, 2011).

No, didn't even know about it. I can see if anyone I know went.

It was a part of this apparently under-publicized series of ongoing Monday night lectures at NYU

http://clacs.as.nyu.edu/object/clacs.events.colloquium

Wow. That whole series looks good.

Can’t remember which thread it was on, but a recent discussion inspired me to finally get a hold of Bryan McCann’s 33 1/3 Getz/Gilberto book, and it is almost freaking me out how good it is, a straight shot to the pleasure center, exceeding my already high expectations going in, given the subject and the author. In addition to everything else it is often very funny, I have laughed out loud several times.

Book about Clube da Esquina looks good too.

Which is written by this guy, who has another book coming out soon, expanding on the topic to include the whole state of Minas Gerais.

https://www.jgrassemusic.com/

Need to add those to my already long list of books I need to get and read

This article by Alt Rock Chick put me off reading it, though she concedes that his research is excellent. xp

Also the spelling of his name always makes me think of an endurance contest in which all the participants are named Jonathan.

because of the thing about the bus?

oh, she gives the impression that his style is annoyingly effusive and uncritical- i'm not into that.

the list of records that have meant as much to me as Clube da Esquina is extremely short. it might be my favorite album, it might be the best 'pop' album ever made if such a thing exists. but it's rough and loose and doesn't try to be perfect. it seems weird to approach it as, like, this flawless masterpiece. it's the anti-flawless masterpiece.

Ah, well said.

I just like that he is focused on Minas and not on some of the other usual places.

hmm. on the one hand some of the Grasse excerpts in that ARC article are unappealingly florid, but on the other the ARC writer says some weird stuff herself. I was scratching my head at this:

I think Grasse cops out in his description of this song as “an ode to psychedelia.” The term “psychedelic” suffers from serious overuse, imprecisely applied to any music from the era that contains weird sounds. The piece certainly has the surrealistic touch that provided much of the gloss in psychedelic music, but the tonal qualities are closer to avant-garde jazz than Country Joe & The Fish and the combined impact of the gaggle of sounds and contra-rhythms are more suited to an experimental film soundtrack than FM radio.

Yesterday realized that I have more than a few books on this subject at this point, some of which I have even read.

Modern Brazil - s/d

Another Brazil thread (but I didn't confirm whether it discusses books)

Ruy Castro's bossa nova book is great, still need to track down the one he has on samba-canção.

There's two volumes of Lindo Sonho Delirante, covering Brazilian psych record by record. Not in depth but fun.

Read that first Ruy Castro book didn’t know about the second. He also wrote a book about Garrincha, I believe, but that’s a different topic.

Don't know if the second ever got translated tbf.

Am getting a little more ambitious about reading in Portuguese these days so...

This book of his Ele é carioca looks good.

RIP JOAO DONATO
the greatest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjUqVGNd_08

Oh no! That album rules.