There’s Always A New Trend

Bossa Nova means “new trend” in Portuguese. Born in the fifties, made big in the sixties, it took a Brazilian beach samba vibe, mashed it with smooth jazz, and became a new trend indeed.

If you hear it in the elevator now, you might think The Girl from Ipanema is trite. But then again, things have to become more or less universal to become trite. If you’ve a mind to, you can transport yourself to the time and place and circumstances of the ears hanging by the transistor radios and wonder what it would be like to hear Astrud Gilberto’s whisper and Stan Getz’ lounge saxophone for the first time. There was nothing like it. Compare it to the blattering roar of big bands, still abroad in the land from their heyday in the forties.

I’m not sure what the new trend is right now. I don’t try to keep up as much as if I was still performing, or even listening to popular records. But there’s got to be something out there. There always is. Maybe my children will invent it.