Ron Bernard – Do the Bossa Nova 🌹

Ron Bernard | Do the Bossa Nova 🌹

Greetings from Australia.

In celebration of the 60th Anniversary of Bossa Nova and ardently inspired by singers of the Great American Songbook, such as Como, Day, and Thomas, who in the mid 60s dedicated entire albums to their very own renditions of Bossa tunes, I bring you Do the Bossa Nova with my interpretation of five Brazilian classics.

The rationale to interpret these songs the way I did was the 1962 album Jazz Samba by Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd, the first North Americans to release an album of Bossa Nova. That is to say I sing the songs in my own style, bringing my classical training influences (bel canto/canto lírico) into the music, which I combine with my linguistic skills to give you my very own sounds not only in English, but also in French and Portuguese.

While I portray the romanticism and the feeling of melancholy inherent in the music, as well as its sassiness, I do not necessarily restrict myself to the singing style of the genre. Rather the reverse, I embrace the songs as my very own. This is somewhat in tune with the fact that the album Jazz Samba is not actually Bossa Nova, but Jazz Bossa, as acknowledged by Byrd. A masterpiece that has influenced a vast number of musicians to date, including the great singers who have inspired me, arguably the beginning of the Bossa Nova craze.

Also similar to Jazz Samba, which was recorded in about 2 hours, I too recorded Do the Bossa Nova in one sitting, an emotional experience I now share with you.