“Soul Bossa Nova”
Quincy Jones & His Orchestra
Written, arranged, conducted and produced by Quincy Jones
From the album Big Band Bossa Nova
Released in 1962
“Soul Bossa Nova” is one of Quincy’s best-known and most enduring composition. After its initial release on Big Band Bossa Nova in 1962, it went on to serve as the theme for a Canadian game show, was sampled in two different hip-hop hits and served as the theme song of the Austin Powers film trilogy.
The song’s inspiration dates back to late ‘50s, when Quincy was part of Dizzy Gillespie’s USO touring band. While in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Quincy and Dizzy met a young piano player by the name of Lalo Schifrin. “He told us once you get to Brazil you’re going to see some new music that they’re experimenting with. They call it New Wave, which is what Bossa Nova means in Portuguese,” Quincy recalls. “In the beginning they called it Jazz and Samba.”
Quincy, Mike Myers as Austin Powers and film composer George S. Clinton. (Photo courtesy of George S. Clinton).
Once in Rio, Brazil, Quincy saw the music evolve before his eyes. “So one afternoon on Copacabana beach, Dizzy asked me to go to the Gloria Hotel,” Quincy remembers. “Dizzy sat in with the house band, a Samba band playing Bebop. In the front seats in the audience were Astrud and Joao Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim, they were very young.” When Jobim later recorded the landmark Bossa Nova song “Desafinado,” you could hear the influence of Gillespie’s trumpet in the mix.
Later, Quincy and several Brazilian musicians including Sergio Mendes and Gilberto Gil, played a special midnight show at Carnegie Hall in New York City focusing on Bossa Nova. Shortly thereafter, Quincy recorded Big Band Bossa Nova. It featured his rendition of “Desafinado” and songs penned by Jobim, Schifrin, and Charles Mingus, but it was Quincy’s own composition, “Soul Bossa Nova,” the album’s lead track featuring a show-stopping Rahsaan Roland Kirk flute solo, that had the most impact.
Long before Austin Powers, the song was heard in movie theaters, first in Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker in 1964, which Quincy scored, and later in Woody Allen’s 1969 film Take the Money and Run. It also served as the theme of the ‘70s Canadian game show Definition. That in turn inspired Mike Myers to use the track in Austin Powers as well as the Canadian hop-hop duo Dream Warriors, which sampled the song in “My Definition of a Boombastic Jazz Style.”
“I’d done Saturday Night Live a couple of times with Mike Myers,” Quincy explains. “Sean Perry, head of Endeavor [talent agency] told me about his father, Jim, who was one of the biggest game show hosts in Canada. He hosted Definition, which used my record for its theme song, and Jim Perry was Mike Myers’ idol when he was growing up, so that’s how Mike Myers’ got the idea to use ‘Soul Bossa Nova’ in Austin Powers, not once, but in all three films. And in the third one, the director even put me in the film making a cameo along with Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise. That same year, Ludacris recorded ‘Number One Spot,’ which samples my song, and the video won a VMA. It’s kooky, man, but that’s how it happened.”
What’s your favorite use of “Soul Bossa Nova” — Quincy’s original track, how it’s been sampled, or how it has been used in films and on TV?
Great stuff
This is one of my all time Favs…! I love it.!
Congratulations on the launch of your website.
I love all his compositions, Desafinado is one of my favorits that I like to play on Clarinet.!
I would have to say I enjoy the original track the most. It has not always been tastefully sampled in my opinion.
I like the original track…
The reason I am such a fan is because he of the use of real instruments. So much of that is missing these days. I must say, I love the Wings version of “Girlfriend”. You are indeed a master of music…I would love to do a diverse album for you showcasing some of the things you’ve produced over my lifetime. God bless you, Mr. Jones and thank you.
A great bossa nova with a great arrangement and a amazing ostinato
I would love to get the original arrangement of Soul Bossa Nova for the big band that I play in. And…Since I am really a flute player, I would love to have a song that featured flute for once. Where can I purchase an original arrangement?
this is a great moment captured in time. you are all legands and you, MR. JONES, is someone i aspire to build from. thank you for your wisdom and your musical attributes to the ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY in a whole. i wish you well. PEACE AND BLESSINGS. “KING COOL’P.”(C)2009. (MUSIC ARTIST/URBAN BUSINESS MIND).
visit: http://www.myspace.com/darkclanridaz
This was a very good read, please keep updating!
Grande mestre de todos nós, músicos.
Meu nome é Sergio Vinci, músico, compositor, violonista, cantor brasileiro.
Atuo no Brasil há muitos anos, e quando adolescente, dancei muito Soul Bossa Nova em bailes black.
Essa música me influenciou muito, no meu modo de compor.
Em 2009, compûs uma letra e gostaria de ter sua aprovação para gravá-la.
Gostaria de saber pra onde enviá-la.
A letra e a gravação.
Hey. I don’t follow many blogs, but yours is of thefew I read.Have a superb day!
So Fancy.
Tell us of some of the difficulties Oscar Pettiford
faced during his musical career? What did he face when he toured with his
many bands? What can others take from these stories?
- What are your own personal memories/anecdotes of Oscar Pettiford What
did you learn from him? What can others learn from him?
- In your opinion, what were the highlights of Oscar’s career personally?
Musically (concerts, songs etc.)?
- From Nov. 1943 till April 1944 Pettiford lead the first bebop quintet
(with Dizzy Gillespie, still at the Onyx Club). “Playing unison lines in
this band was my idea,” Oscar said “you know, the trumpet and tenor playing
lines together. The system of one guy playing the line and the
other playing
whole notes behind him seemed corny to me.” Why was that such a significant
change for music? How has it affected music today?
- What is the significance of Pettiford’s induction into the Hall of Fame
for music? What lead to the recognition?
- Pettiford credited 4/4, the basic time of jazz, to the American Indian
culture and although 4/4 existed in European music, it was not used in the
same way, and African rhythms, supposedly the important ingredient in jazz,
were of a different nature. Can you explain that concept a bit for us?
Explain the importance of that in jazz.
- Pettiford was a dual musician playing both double bass and cello (after
injuring his arm). Why was this significant?
- How did Pettiford’s cultural background (mother Choctaw, father
Cherokee and African-American) influence him personally? Musically?
Is there any truth that Quincy Jones produced an album with Oscar Pettiford?
Is Oscar Pettiford responsible for helping Quincy Jones stay in New york to help him persue his music career?