THE GIRL FROM IPANEMA
Joyce Moreno, one of Brazil’s best-known singer-songwriters and a proud Carioca by birth, describes the city and music that define her life.
“I was born in the neighbourhood of Posto 6 in 1948, on the border between Copacabana and Ipanema. I went to school right in front of Arpoador Beach and it was very hard to study with the windows open and all our surfer boyfriends hanging around outside. My father was Danish, from Copenhagen, but I was raised by my mother, Zemir Silveira Palhano de Jesus. She was a complete Carioca, born in Rio, as was my grandmother. I come from a long line of girls from Ipanema.
“People come to Rio de Janeiro and fall in love with it for two reasons. One is the visual aspect – the landscape is very hard to beat. I collect pictures of old and new Rio and it’s always the same beauty that surges up. I imagine the Portuguese coming here in their ships and seeing that incredible landscape for the first time. Coming by sea, the view really is a shock. Second, we Cariocas are very relaxed. We have a famous saying – jeitinho, which means there’s always a way to arrange things. We are a very easy-going, friendly people.
“Rio is every bit a beach city – everyone dresses as if they have just come from the beach. Life is lived out in the open – you can even do business on the beach. People really do. And of course the music I heard as a child is always with me. The music I make is completely Carioca music. Bossa nova was created by João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim here in Rio. When I was growing up, it was all around me and very popular. Before that we had great music, too: samba and choro were created here. I listened to it all when I was young. It was a time when you could turn on the radio and hear all those styles of music, which is impossible today.
“I’ve been working on a number of TV series about Brazilian music for children and teenagers, because I think this treasure will be lost otherwise – mainstream TV only features rather poor pop music. Of all the series I’ve created and presented, my favourite is No
Compasso da História (In the Beat of History), 15 one-hour documentaries on Brazilian history explained through the country’s music. It’s amazing how the great Brazilian songbook can tell us everything about our history and people.
“I live in the Humaitá neighbourhood on the top of a big hill in Rio’s southern zone. It’s very quiet, although people are starting to discover it now. I work at home, composing; I have my office in the back with music, books and my computer and guitars. I mostly stay here – I’m a localist.
“I would never leave Rio. I have family [Moreno has four daughters], I have friends, but most of all I have the city that I love so much. At sunset every day on Arpoador rock, people applaud when the sun goes down exactly between the two mountains on the other side of the bay. It’s a Carioca custom and I think that a people that applauds a simple sunset must be very good folk.”