Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World (47 page)

For “Lobo bobo” (Foolish Wolf), Gordine paid Carlinhos Lyra and Ronaldo Bôscoli the equivalent, at the time, of ninety-two dollars—that is, forty-six dollars each. For the same price, Menescal and Bôscoli also sold Gordine the rights to “O barquinho” (The Little Boat), “Errinho à toa” (Worthless Mistake), “Panorâmica” (Panorama), “Lágrima primeira” (First Tear), and “Nós e o mar” (Us and the Sea). He paid the same for four of Bonfá’s songs and three of Chico Feitosa’s. The worst deal was made by João Gilberto, to whom at that time it seemed too good to be true. He alone received the equivalent in 1961 of three hundred seven dollars for “Bim-bom,” “Hô-ba-la-lá,” and “Um abraço no Bonfá” (A Hug for Bonfá)—for all three. With these songs Gordine opened up, for himself, the international market for bossa nova, sublicensing them to the Leeds Corporation of the United States. The money made by these songs would be paid to him through Umberto Marconi, in his capacity as paternal trustee.

News of the international success of “Le petit bateau,” “The little boat,” and “El barquito” (and other songs) reached Brazil, but Menescal and Bôscoli never saw a single cent of it. One of two things was happening: either the money wasn’t leaving Paris, or it was being lost in some safe in Rua Evaristo da Veiga, where Marconi had his office. But the boys weren’t that persistent in their quest to recover their money. Luvercy Fiorini, Oscar Castro-Neves’s partner and one of the first in the bossa nova gang to have a song published and recorded by a dozen U.S. artists (“Chora tua tristeza” [Cry Your Sadness]), had no idea at the time that he was owed any money for this and remained uninterested in actively seeking out payment.

Jobim and Vinícius had already been scalped by Gordine for the
Orpheus
film. One year after the musical display at the Copacabana Palace, Gordine talked songwriter-guitarist Baden Powell into signing a contract to the effect that whatever he produced in the next twelve months would become the property of Gordine. Baden must have thought that there was something amiss, because he continued to compose but told Gordine he wasn’t writing anything. During this period, Lidia Libion quit working for Gordine and became a huge fan of bossa nova. She came to believe that the money from those songs never reached Rio.

Perhaps not. But at the end of the sixties, Menescal was one of those who had reason to be disappointed with Marconi. According to Menescal, upon a visit to Marconi’s office, he discovered a tape recorder under the desk that had recorded all their conversations. Strangely enough, it didn’t take Marconi long to vanish from Rio for good, perhaps even from Brazil. Nobody was ever able to find him again, not even if they had wanted to know where to send flowers.

This would be a good first chapter for a mystery novel that could be entitled
The Great Bossa Nova Robbery
.

“To save bossa nova, I’d even make love to the Trio Irakitan,” remarked Ronaldo Bôscoli, Nara Leão’s fiancé.

Someone had jokingly suggested to Bôscoli that if he had an affair with the luscious singer Maysa, she might switch to singing bossa nova—given that in 1961, bossa nova was sorely in need of a singer with national prominence. João Gilberto may have been a god to many, but they were part of the privileged elite, like the fans of Sylvinha Telles, Alayde Costa, Carlinhos Lyra, Johnny Alf, Sérgio Ricardo, and Os Cariocas. Bossa nova was now a name fought over by refrigerator manufacturers, but the music of the genre, which was what was important, wasn’t played on Rádio Nacional, for example (not that they were particularly crazy about Rádio Nacional’s taste in music).

Maysa was a household name as a singer and also as a celebrity. She was performing at the Blue Angel nightclub in New York, and it was said that Marlon Brando had all her records. From 1958 on, her drinking binges became public news, and she made the tabloid pages about as often as she did the music charts with songs like “Ouça” (Listen) and “Meu mundo caiu” (My World Fell). The reasons were always the same: she’d throw her shoe, glass, or microphone at the head of anyone who was talking loudly in the nightclub where she was singing; she would come to blows on stage with the pianist Pedrinho Mattar over a simple chord; she had to be tied to the piano to keep her upright during a live performance on the TV show
Noite de gala
(Gala Night); she was seen stumbling around barefoot in the street at four in the morning, saying that it was in an effort to lose weight.

It wasn’t, but it should have been, because she ballooned grotesquely once she became famous. In April 1960, Maysa weighed ninety-six kilos (211 pounds) when she decided to lose weight via the favorite method of stars at the time: surgically. Eight doctors in São Paulo worked on her over a ten-hour period, like in the famous Rembrandt painting, and completed several plastic surgery procedures simultaneously, the main one being to relieve her of the belly she had acquired during her pregnancy. Immediately afterward, they put her on a strict diet, which included the radical replacement of Scotch with milk. Maysa lost twenty-eight kilos (sixty-two pounds)—or “twenty-eight liters,” as she put it. She decided to do something worthwhile with her life, but overdid it somewhat. To everyone’s astonishment, she volunteered as a nurse at the Nossa Senhora do Carmo hospital in São Paulo, where she
allowed herelf to be photographed in a white uniform, knitting and reading Pearl S. Buck novels. Everyone thought she must be keeping a promise to the saints.

If that was the case, she must have settled accounts fairly quickly, because within a few months, she was celebrating her return to the work-force. She gained weight all over again, moved to Rio, and in 1961 was persuaded by Bôscoli and Menescal to sing their songs. Bôscoli didn’t think that with her dark temperament Maysa would be suited to songs that were more typically bossa nova, like “The Little Boat,” which they had written for Nara Leão. But she would be perfect for the more sober songs, like “Lágrima primeira,” which they had both written, or “Depois do amor” (After Love), which Bôscoli had written with Normando, and “Melancolia” (Melancholy), with Luizinho Eça.

But Maysa wanted to give her career a modern image, and fell in love with “The Little Boat.” She also fell in love with Bôscoli, who was never one to reject an advance, and they all left for a trip to Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay—Maysa, Menescal, Bôscoli, Vinhas, and a new trio that was being formed: Luizinho Eça, Bebeto, and Hélcio. That is, the Tamba Trio. On the tour, they tried out the new repertoire, and Ronaldo also tried out an affair with a real woman, Maysa. He wasn’t exactly naïve, and he really liked Nara, his girlfriend of four years. The two of them were engaged to be married, and had already exchanged rings. But in those pre-pill days, sex was a problem, and they were obliged to take risks with a sort of “Vatican roulette.” That was when Maysa came onto the scene, with all her experience, charm, beauty—and problems.

Since divorcing her husband, she had had affairs with the singer Almir Ribeiro, who died at Punta del Este, and with Sylvinha’s brother, Mário Telles, among others. As Bôscoli found out, Maysa threw herself into her private life with greater sensuality than she did her songs, if this were possible. It was a revelation even for him, but had it been up to Bôscoli, their torrid relationship would have ended there, in Buenos Aires. When they returned to Brazil, he planned to go back to Nara, keeping the affair with Maysa going for just a short while longer. Only she didn’t give him a chance to firm up his plans. At the Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires, a few minutes before they were due to leave to return to Brazil, Maysa phoned Columbia in Rio: “Send reporters to Galeão airport. I’m going to make a sensational announcement,” she promised.

This time, Bôscoli was the last one to find out about it. When the plane landed, he was astonished to see such an enormous crowd of his press colleagues waiting for them at the airport, and just about had a stroke when Maysa announced: “This is the news. I’m going to marry Ronaldo Bôscoli, who’s right here, and nobody can stop me.”

The cat appeared to have swallowed Bôscoli’s tongue. He did not react. Having made her announcement, Maysa grabbed him by the arm and steered him with the greatest of ease toward the airport buildings. Photographs of this event show a gigantically fat Maysa, huddled inside an overcoat with buttons the size of saucers, staring firmly with those eyes that were like two non-Pacific oceans, with the determination of one who was about to leave for the battle of Normandy. At her side was a disheveled and sheepish-looking Ronaldo, carrying his suitcase and overcoat, slightly off-balance by the weight of Maysa’s heavy arm clamped over his, apparently contemplating life with an air of sad resignation.

Anyone who knew Nara Leão can imagine how the sky must have fallen in on her when the reporters phoned her from the airport to ask her what she thought of her fiancé marrying Maysa. Nara’s denial was broadcast through the most official channel possible: Ibrahim Sued’s society column in
O Globo
. There wasn’t going to be any wedding, she assured. The following day, Maysa contradicted her denial in the other newspapers: there would indeed be a wedding, no matter what anyone said. Nara then confirmed that her own engagement was off. Throughout those entire few days, the reporters were unable to locate the groom. He was hiding in the Hotel Plaza.

Bôscoli merely wanted to bide his time to see if things would cool down. Until Nara forgave him for his affair with Maysa, he would stay with Maysa, by whom he was, despite everything, completely fascinated. He didn’t stay fascinated for very long, but during the slightly more than a year that they were together, she recorded a great album at Columbia,
Barquinho
, which finally gave bossa nova a national boost and put the song that was meant for Nara on the map. She also took part, with Ronaldo Bôscoli, in some of the best and worst moments in the battle of the sexes.

Almost all their daily fights were about drinking. Bôscoli, who was not exactly teetotal, was stupefied by the amount of alcohol that Maysa put away. He spent the whole day hiding booze from her, at least before a show—or there wouldn’t be any show. She would react, and blows were exchanged. During one of their fights, a few minutes before she was due to go on stage at a nightclub in São Paulo, one of Maysa’s tooth implants flew out and landed quite a distance away, on the dance floor. Despite the dark lighting in the nightclub, the gap in her mouth could be clearly seen. Suddenly, there was a team of men—Bôscoli, Vinhas, and others—crawling around on their hands and knees in the middle of the dance floor, looking for the tooth.

All of his fights with
A Gorda
(The Fat One), as Bôscoli called her, seemed very funny the next day when he told his friends about them. But they weren’t quite as funny while they were happening. When he grabbed his jacket to leave Maysa’s apartment in Copacabana—”for good”—she swore that she
would stop drinking—”for good”—and emptied her bottles down the toilet. Bôscoli thought her drinking days were over, until he noticed a piece of twine hanging out of the bathroom window. He pulled on it and hoisted up a bottle of Scotch. He had already seen a scene like this, only it had been in a film with Ray Milland.

But Maysa did manage one achievement: getting Ronaldo to overcome his fear of flying. He, in turn, dragged her to Cabo Frio one time, although admittedly only to prove to Ceci the boatman that they were
the
Menescal and Bôscoli mentioned on the radio—because after all, Ceci knew who Maysa was. Finally, in 1962, she convinced Bôscoli (and Menescal, Vinhas, and the Tamba Trio) to move to Vitória, in Espírito Santo state, far from this crazy world. The amazing thing is, they went. Until, some weeks later, when Bôscoli finally grew tired of watching Maysa trying to destroy herself, took the car in secret, and returned to Rio, without even leaving her a note.

Everyone was affected by the Maysa/Bôscoli affair. The two of them, obviously, and Nara Leão also. Nara took years to forgive Ronaldo, and did so only once there was no longer any hope for the two of them. Bôscoli’s friends confirm that for a long time, he continued to look for Nara in all the women he dated—actresses Betty Faria, Joana Fomm, Mila Moreira. Bossa nova also suffered, because during the affair, Menescal and the others became Maysa’s companions, and obviously could no longer go to Nara’s apartment. An important cohesion among the gang had been lost. But only for that particular gang, because almost immediately Nara made peace with Carlinhos Lyra, got her head straightened out by her new boyfriend, the Mozambican filmmaker Ruy Guerra, and began to get interested in a type of music that, compared to bossa nova, would make her radically change her mind.