From Bossa Nova muse to MPB originator
Nara Leão’s biography narrates the singer’s influence on Brazilian music
Marco Antonio Barbosa
24/08/2001
Among the many images of late singer Nara Leão are the ones of the Bossa Nova muse, of the amiable smooth-voiced singer, of the combative artist that participated in the legendary Opinião concert, in 1965. All of these facets will be abridged on the book Nara Leão: Uma Biografia (published on Lumiar), by journalist Sérgio Cabral. Besides these "various Naras", Sérgio’s book spotlights the singer, who passed away in 1989, as something few had ever imagined: the originator of MPB.
"As I was writing the book, I realized that Nara forged what we now call MPB on her first LP - Nara
, in 1964. Not even I had grasped that before putting together all of her history", claims the 45-year career music journalist Sérgio Cabral. He explains his thesis: "The fact is that on her first album, Nara broke off with Bossa Nova - and was very criticized, they said she was going ‘to the other side’, being this side a more popular kind of music - when she decided to record songs by composers like Zé Keti and Nelson Cavaquinho, besides having opened her ears to Northeastern influences. What she was doing, really, was to forge another aesthetic for the Brazilian music."
The veteran journalist continues: "She incorporated the good part of bossa nova and added Northeast, samba, Baden Powell. (She) gave it a modern treatment, post-bossa, without the formalism and Puritanism of that movement. The fact is that the generation of composers that emerged in the 60’s - Caetano, Gil, Chico, that is, the eternal synonyms of MPB - were already writing songs that could fit in Nara’s repertoire. What is understood by Brazilian modern music was inaugurated with that first LP of hers."
"I like to think that I’m writing the history of Brazilian music through its characters. Therefore, to talk about the music of the 60’s and 70’s, I chose Nara, who was a legitimate protagonist of her time", explains Sérgio Cabral. "She was in touch with everything that was happening in the musical scene and serves as the thread for the history of those years."
A witness to the genesis of Bossa Nova (there were famous gatherings in her Copacabana apartment, where the likes of Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal and Ronaldo Bôscoli performed future hits of the genre), Nara made her professional debut at a distance from the movement, and continued fooling whoever tried to label her. "She surprised everyone on every album she recorded. But Nara never sold out to trends. Either she anticipated them, or did something totally unexpected; she would come up with a forgotten composer or an outdated rhythm. She had a strong personality", recalls Sérgio.
"She was always ahead of her time, and wouldn’t give up to the patrolling that was going on at the time. That’s why she was able to introduce so many new composers, like Chico Buarque and Sidney Miller", says Cabral. Nara professed the phase of the protest singers, lived the time of the festivals, went through the Jovem Guarda, saw the flowering of the tropicalists (she participated in the seminal album Tropicália ou Panis et Circensis, in 1968) and kept active until she died.
To write the book Nara Leão: Uma Biografia, Sérgio Cabral interviewed many personalities who took part of different phases in Nara’s life: Chico Buarque, Maria Bethânia, Menescal, Lyra, director Carlos Diegues (her former husband) and others. "Most of the statements were made exclusively for the book", claims Cabral, "but some were collected from my archives. I also relied on my personal memory. I met Nara in 1961 and was good friends with her."
Sérgio Cabral, a notorious MPB biographer (he’s edited books about Elizeth Cardoso, Pixinguinha, Tom Jobim, Ary Barroso and Almirante), hopes his book on Nara Leão will help revaluate the importance of the singer in the MPB. "It’s a mystery why she hasn’t been recognized as one of the most influent characters of our music. We forget people easily. But I believe that, at least unconsciously, the revolution she started was realized by the people who surrounded her", says the journalist.
"As I was writing the book, I realized that Nara forged what we now call MPB on her first LP - Nara
, in 1964. Not even I had grasped that before putting together all of her history", claims the 45-year career music journalist Sérgio Cabral. He explains his thesis: "The fact is that on her first album, Nara broke off with Bossa Nova - and was very criticized, they said she was going ‘to the other side’, being this side a more popular kind of music - when she decided to record songs by composers like Zé Keti and Nelson Cavaquinho, besides having opened her ears to Northeastern influences. What she was doing, really, was to forge another aesthetic for the Brazilian music." The veteran journalist continues: "She incorporated the good part of bossa nova and added Northeast, samba, Baden Powell. (She) gave it a modern treatment, post-bossa, without the formalism and Puritanism of that movement. The fact is that the generation of composers that emerged in the 60’s - Caetano, Gil, Chico, that is, the eternal synonyms of MPB - were already writing songs that could fit in Nara’s repertoire. What is understood by Brazilian modern music was inaugurated with that first LP of hers."
"I like to think that I’m writing the history of Brazilian music through its characters. Therefore, to talk about the music of the 60’s and 70’s, I chose Nara, who was a legitimate protagonist of her time", explains Sérgio Cabral. "She was in touch with everything that was happening in the musical scene and serves as the thread for the history of those years."
A witness to the genesis of Bossa Nova (there were famous gatherings in her Copacabana apartment, where the likes of Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal and Ronaldo Bôscoli performed future hits of the genre), Nara made her professional debut at a distance from the movement, and continued fooling whoever tried to label her. "She surprised everyone on every album she recorded. But Nara never sold out to trends. Either she anticipated them, or did something totally unexpected; she would come up with a forgotten composer or an outdated rhythm. She had a strong personality", recalls Sérgio.
"She was always ahead of her time, and wouldn’t give up to the patrolling that was going on at the time. That’s why she was able to introduce so many new composers, like Chico Buarque and Sidney Miller", says Cabral. Nara professed the phase of the protest singers, lived the time of the festivals, went through the Jovem Guarda, saw the flowering of the tropicalists (she participated in the seminal album Tropicália ou Panis et Circensis
, in 1968) and kept active until she died. To write the book Nara Leão: Uma Biografia, Sérgio Cabral interviewed many personalities who took part of different phases in Nara’s life: Chico Buarque, Maria Bethânia, Menescal, Lyra, director Carlos Diegues (her former husband) and others. "Most of the statements were made exclusively for the book", claims Cabral, "but some were collected from my archives. I also relied on my personal memory. I met Nara in 1961 and was good friends with her."
Sérgio Cabral, a notorious MPB biographer (he’s edited books about Elizeth Cardoso, Pixinguinha, Tom Jobim, Ary Barroso and Almirante), hopes his book on Nara Leão will help revaluate the importance of the singer in the MPB. "It’s a mystery why she hasn’t been recognized as one of the most influent characters of our music. We forget people easily. But I believe that, at least unconsciously, the revolution she started was realized by the people who surrounded her", says the journalist.