When Bossa Nova Was: The Sounds and Flavors of Brazilian Music in the United States during the 1960s

This dissertation offers a revisionist history of American popular music in the 1960s. Historians, cultural scholars, and ethnomusicologists have documented how Latin musicians – notably those of African descent from Cuba – profoundly shaped the sound of twentieth century American music. I supplement their scholarship by focusing on bossa nova, a style of music developed in Brazil in the late 1950s, to show how bossa nova rhythms found their way into music that scholars never considered being indebted to bossa nova – notably African American music like soul, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and funk. I also study sources as diverse as the Chicago Defender, magazines like Hi-Fi/Stereo Review, and films like The Pawnbroker to argue that Americans of multiple classes, genders, and races all engaged with bossa nova music in contrasting ways during the 1960s.