The Charlie Byrd Trio's Trip to Brazil, 1961

In 1961 guitarist Charlie Byrd was asked to replace Dave Brubeck on a 12-week tour of South America as part of a cultural exchange program under the auspices of the U.S. State Department. Bassist Keter Betts and percussionist Buddy Deppenschmidt accompanied him, along with tour manager and vocalist Ginny (Mrs. Charlie) Byrd. The group spent almost two weeks in Brazil.

Byrd credits his introduction to bossa nova to his friend Felix Grant, who had been playing Brazilian music on his WMAL radio show since the late 1950s. He recalled in an interview for Globo TV: “I think the first time I heard it [bossa nova] anywhere – Felix Grant played a few João Gilberto records. On my way to Brazil, I stopped in Caracas and I met a man named Jacques Bernstein (an aficionado of jazz and all kinds of music) and he had an extensive collection of bossa nova. He had everything that had been recorded up to that time. And a few days later we went down to Brazil – started in the north – in Recife. I went out and played with some guys in a café, whose names I don’t remember. So that was my first exposure to playing it live.”

The informal gatherings at private clubs and several Brazilian homes provided some of the most rewarding experiences for cultural exchange. In a letter published in Time magazine (Nov. 21, 1963), Judge Carlos C. Costa recalled: “I had attended a concert that the Byrd trio gave in Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia, Brazil, afterwards inviting the group for drinks at a private club. There we played and sang the bossa nova, interesting the trio in it so much that they joined us, making a kind of bossa nova jam session. We also met and played the next day at my home.”

According to Buddy Deppenschmidt, both he and Keter Betts fell in love with the music immediately. They bought two João Gilberto albums and began rehearsing in their hotel rooms while on the tour. When the trio returned to Washington, they began to incorporate some of the bossa nova music into the group’s repertoire. Buddy Deppenschmidt remembers that it was at his insistence that they eventually began to play the music at the Showboat Lounge in Washington, D.C.

The stage was now set for what was to come next––the historic recording that launched the bossa nova craze in the United States–– Jazz Samba.