Soul Jazz Records founder Stuart Baker and tastemaker Giles Peterson have put together a stunning visual history of the Brazilian bossa nova scene. Bossa Nova and the Rise of Brazilian Music in the 1960s features cover artwork, artist’s biographies and essays on a musical movement that’s a fascinating insight into the changing social climate of Sixties Brazil.

As Rio developed into an urban society, with ‘apartment living’ and consumer goods, bossa nova projected an image that was modern, sophisticated and cool. At the time Brazil’s newly elected president promised the country, “fifty years of progress in five.”

It was the modernist architecture of Oscar Niemeyer, which dominated this fresh vision of the capital, that inspired much of the bossa nova movement’s cover art. The record sleeve designs, like the country, were radical, innovative and exciting. While Bossa Nova quickly became a musical phenomenon with Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz’s The Girl from Ipanema an international hit, by 1964 the period of Brazilian optimism was spent, and the country fell under the rule of a violent military dictatorship that would affect the lives of ordinary Brazilians – and the music – for the next 20 years. More than another graphic sourcebook of sublime modernist design for your coffee table, Bossa Nova and the Rise of Brazilian Music in the 1960s, is a snapshot of the vivacious bygone era behind the beat.

Bossa Nova and the Rise of Brazilian Music in the 1960 is available now from, Soul Jazz Records, and the accompanying album will be on sale from the 24th January.

Tags: Bossa Nova, Brazil, Giles Peterson, Oscar Niemeyer, Soul Jazz Records, Stuart Baker