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Bill Beach | |
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| Background information | |
| Born | 1953 (age 70–71) Corvallis, Oregon, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz, bossa nova |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer |
| Instrument | Piano |
| Years active | 1970–present |
| Labels | Axial |
| Website | billbeach |
Bill Beach (born 1953) is a jazz pianist, vocalist, and teacher.
In 2003, Beach began to study Brazilian music and the Portuguese language. He concentrated on the bossa nova introduced by Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, Vinicius De Moraes, Carlos Lyra and João Donato and the later MPB styles of Sergio Mendez, Edu Lobo, Milton Nascimento, and Ivan Lins. He released Letting Go [1] in 2004 on his Axial Records label. This album was his debut as leader of a recording session and featured Beach singing Brazilian standards and playing original instrumentals in a piano trio setting.
In 2008, Beach began writing lyrics in the Brazilian style, and his album Brasil Beat (2010) [2] [3] contained music and lyrics in Portuguese. This was followed by Búzios [4] [5] also original material and also on Axial Records. This album featured Rebecca Kilgore on vocals and Gary Hobbs on drums. [6]
Bossa nova is a relaxed style of samba developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is mainly characterized by a calm syncopated rhythm with chords and fingerstyle mimicking the beat of a samba groove, as if it was a simplification and stylization on the guitar of the rhythm produced by a samba school band. Another defining characteristic of the style is the use of unconventional chords in some cases with complex progressions and "ambiguous" harmonies. A common misconception is that these complex chords and harmonies were derived from jazz, but samba guitar players have been using similar arrangement structures since the early 1920s, indicating a case of parallel evolution of styles rather than a simple transference from jazz to bossa nova. Nevertheless bossa nova was influenced by jazz, both in the harmonies used and also by the instrumentation of songs, today many bossa nova songs are considered jazz standards. The increase in popularity of bossa nova has helped to renew samba and contributed to the modernization of Brazilian music in general.
Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim, also known as Tom Jobim, was a Brazilian composer, pianist, guitarist, songwriter, arranger, and singer. Considered as one of the great exponents of Brazilian music, Jobim merged Samba with Cool jazz in the 1960s to create Bossa nova, with worldwide success. As a result, he is widely regarded as the "father of bossa nova".
João Gilberto was a Brazilian guitarist, singer, and composer who was a pioneer of the musical genre of bossa nova in the late 1950s. Around the world, he was often called the "father of bossa nova"; in his native Brazil, he was referred to as "O Mito" . In 1965, the album Getz/Gilberto was the first jazz record to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. It also won Best Jazz Instrumental Album – Individual or Group and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Nominated at the Grammy 1978 in the category Best Jazz Vocal Performance, album Amoroso, and winner category in Grammy 2001 with João voz e violão Best World Music Album.
Eumir Deodato de Almeida is a Brazilian pianist, composer, arranger and record producer, primarily in jazz but who has been known for his eclectic melding of genres, such as pop, rock, disco, rhythm and blues, classical, Latin and bossa nova.
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"Waters of March" is a Brazilian song composed by Antônio Carlos Jobim (1927–1994) in 1972. Jobim wrote both the Portuguese and English lyrics. The lyrics, originally written in Portuguese, do not tell a story, but rather present a series of images that form a collage; nearly every line starts with "É...". In 2001, "Águas de março" was named as the all-time best Brazilian song in a poll of more than 200 Brazilian journalists, musicians and other artists conducted by Brazil's leading daily newspaper, Folha de S.Paulo. It was also voted by the Brazilian edition of Rolling Stone as the second greatest Brazilian song.
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João Donato de Oliveira Neto was a Brazilian jazz and bossa nova pianist as well as a trombonist from Rio Branco. He first worked with Altamiro Carrilho and went on to perform with Antonio Carlos Jobim and Astrud Gilberto. Because of the area he grew up in Brasil he was able to hear Cuban music on the radio. This influence would manifest itself in many of his compositions, piano, and trombone playing. Donato's most well-known compositions include: "Amazonas", "Lugar Comum", "Simples Carinho", "Até Quem Sabe" and "Nasci Para Bailar".
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