Until April 25, 2024, BLITZ publishes a list of 50 songs that paved the way for the freedom achieved 50 years ago. These are songs that, during the Estado Novo, foreshadowed the change that occurred on April 25, 1974, and gave shape to a cultural revolution that long preceded the political revolution that put an end to the dictatorship. The texts are written by Luís Freitas Branco, author of “The Revolution Before the Revolution” (Zigurate, 2024), to be published this month, a book that documents the way in which Portuguese popular music opened the doors to the cultural, social and politician that triggered April 25, 1974. Every day, this list will ‘receive’ a new song.
16. ‘Outra Vez’, from Bossa Jazz 3 (1967)
What a beautiful thing, a light beat, a syncopated piano, and the low bass, almost whispered, someone distracted could think they were on the other side of the ocean, with an open window facing Corcovado. The real story is that there weren’t even any windows, we were in a Lisbon basement, at Praça da Alegria, number 39, where drummer Paulo Gil, a member of Hot Clube de Portugal since he was 17, created a jazz band, specializing in Bossa Nova, with a pianist with knowledge of the subject, Marcos Resende, from Rio de Janeiro, studying medicine in Lisbon. Bossa Jazz 3, along with Thilo’s Combo, or figures like Jorge Costa Pinto and Pedro Osório, were the protagonists of a story that is yet to be told: despite the regime’s conservatism, jazz breathed freedom into the clubs, nightclubs and casinos.
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