Bossa Nova: The Rise of Brazilian Music in the 60s

First get the CDs by the same name, then be sure to read this book. It's wonderful to see the designs in all their glory, and enlightening to read the historical context provided by the text (even though there are some egregious copyediting errors: "milandro" for "malandro"; a dropped "l" at the end of the word "label"; double spaces sprinkled throughout the text). But these are small quibbles indeed considering how enlightening and enjoyable I found the book to be.

This is collection of album covers from the Bossa Nova age. There is a little bit of information about the period but really this book is for designers and die hard Bossa Nova geeks. The covers are gorgeous in a simple way since technology was limited. There are better books about the artists and history out there. Good for coffee table eye candy.

Gorgeous, original-size full-color reproductions highlight the innovative graphic design of the source album covers. Out of print -- get it if you can!

Yes, yes! It's a very nice book. Good work of search and fine presentation. One must for bossa nova lovers.

Una raccolta curata da Gilles, che ti porta per mano nel Brasile dei primi anni '60. Rio de Janeiro e la Bossa Nova in una storia senza fine..

This book makes a valuable addition to the growing literature on the exquisite Brazilian cultural phenomenon of Bossa Nova. Most of this literature is in Portuguese, so for us this book has the additional benefit of the accompanying text being in English. Soul Jazz Books had a great idea in bringing out this collection of the original cover art of the Bossa Nova albums of the 1960s. The virtually full (12' by 12') album size of the pages is wonderful, giving them a real impact, which we've almost forgotten about in these days of CDs and downloads. The music, lyrics and dance of 1960s Bossa Nova comprise one of Brazil's most incredible, cultural contributions to the world. Although it would not be possible for the album art to be on the same artistic level as the music, it's still very nice to see this collection. This book includes an introductory overview of the traditional narrative of the emergence of Bossa Nova, and the backdrop of the political narrative of the years of dictatorship. Although of course this material is covered much better elsewhere, in particular for instance in Ruy Castro's 'Bossa Nova' [ASIN:1556524943 Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World]. While the book provides a compilation of album art it doesn't go into any thing like the same fascinating detail regarding the artwork and artists as for instance Thorgerson and Powell's [ASIN:0751307068 100 Best Album Covers]] volume. For me by far the most interesting piece of text in this book is the interview with Cesar G. Villela, who produced the wonderfully iconic covers in black-and-white, with their scatter of four red dots. However this only runs to one page (albeit a rather large page). Indeed Villela's covers for the Elenco label are the aesthetic highlight of the book. There is however one staggering omission, that is the album artwork of Rio-based, (I think) Argentine, graphic artist Hector Sapia, whose work included the intriguing cover art for a range of Bossa jazz artists in the 1960s, mostly on the Som Maior label, that has been re-released by Som Livre in recent years. This highly distinctive artwork can be found on albums by for instance Quarteto Bossamba Quarteto Bossamba , Sambrassa Trio and Sambossa Sambossa 5 . Like Villela, Sapia's album artwork is recognised in Brazil as an important contribution within the history of Brazilian graphic art. It would have been wonderful to have seen some of Sapia's album covers in this full-size collection, and I must admit I was a little bit disappointed when I first browsed the book. I'm not sure that the rest of the world realises just what an incredible aesthetic runs through the finest aspects of Brazilian culture, and it may have been interesting if this book had also made an attempt to discuss these iconic album covers in terms of that wider vibrant history of Brazilian graphic art.