"Chega de saudade" and "Saxofone, por que choras"

 A few days ago I was playing through the classic choro "Saxofone, por que choras," and had a sudden flash of realization: The harmonic structure of the A section of "Saxofone" is basically the same as the A section of Jobim's "Chega de saudade." I thought this might be worth a blog post.

There are a lot of great versions of "Saxofone" on Youtube. Here are just three of them. 

The 1944 original by the composer, Ratinho:

A modern version by Nailor Proveta:

A cool live version on accordion, by Dominguinhos:

Anyway, the harmonic structure of the "Saxofone" and "Chega" A sections are same in their broad outlines, though "Chega" does have some substitutions and additions. Here's the basic structure of "Saxofone." Compare it to the chords in "Chega" from any fakebook.

Did Jobim consciously lift the chords from the Ratinho tune? It's not unlikely. He certainly used pre-existing chord changes on a number of his other compositions. Does this same chord structure appear in other choros? If any reader spots one, please let me know.

In the book Bossa Nova: The Story of the Brazilian Music That Seduced the World, Ruy Castro describes how Jobim came to write "Chega de saudade" in 1956:

Jobim had written it almost on a whim - a short time before, at the home of Dona Nilza, his mother, he watched the maid sweeping the living room and softly singing a chorinho. He was impressed with the way the girl managed to sing such a complicated song, in 3 parts [note: Ruy Castro meant "3 sections"], when the large part of what one heard on the radio fit into a single musical phrase. He decided then and there that he would also write a chorinho like that.

Weeks later, at his family's place in Poco Fundo, near Petropolis, he got the idea for "Chega de saudade," and when he reviewed what he had written, he realized he had created a kind of samba-canção in three parts, but with a chorinho flavor...

Some comments: 

In referring to 3 "parts," or sections, Ruy Castro is referencing the fact that most choros are composed with a form AABBACCA, or something similar. Each section generally has a key change. "Chega" is in the form ABC, where the A section is 32 bars, the B section is 16 bars, and the C section is the last 22 bars. 

Although I am no expert, I don't hear this piece as a samba-canção. That genre is a slow or medium tempo samba with a sentimental theme. Even the earliest recordings of "Chega" don't have that tempo or feeling.

"Chega de saudade" is often regarded as the first bossa nova. I think of bossa as defined largely by a moderate samba rhythm, employing some North American jazz-style harmony, and played with the guitar style (and vocal style) developed by Joao Gilberto. "Chega" has the essential ingredients: 

•  It was composed by Jobim, using elements of American music such as melodic references to the old standard tune "Bye Bye Blues" in the A and C sections, and to "When You Wish Upon a Star" in the B section. Harmonically, the entirety of the B section of "Chega" is lifted from "When You Wish...". The C section has some bop-like turnaround material in mm. 51-52, and melodic material in mm. 53-57. The song uses a number of II V sequences (although, granted, II V's are not unique to jazz, and it's also true that jazz had influenced choro for decades previously).

•  The first recordings of "Chega" featured Joao Gilberto on guitar; his style was an essential component of bossa. The first recording, by Elizeth Cardoso (on an independent label), did not achieve great popularity. The second recording, by Joao Gilberto (on Odeon, a major label) became a hit. Gilberto's understated vocal style was another defining component of bossa.

 

Here are some versions of "Chega" that are worth checking out.

The first 1958 recording, by Elizeth Cardoso:

The subsequent 1958 hit recording by Joao Gilberto:

The 1963 recording by Jobim on his first U.S. album, The Composer of Desafinado Plays:

The 1995 recording by Joe Henderson and Herbie Hancock, on Joe's album Double Rainbow:

About the title: Jon Hendricks wrote English-language lyrics in the 1960s, and gave it the title "No More Blues." It's a pretty good choice for the title. "No More Blues" is a rough translation of "Chega de saudade," and also reminds me of "Bye Bye Blues." Perhaps Hendricks noticed the melodic similarity. I don't so much care for the English lyrics, though.

Vinicius de Moraes wrote the original Portuguese lyrics shortly after Jobim finished writing the song. According to Ruy Castro,

Years later, Vinicius said that one of the most difficult set of lyrics he had written had been those of "Chega de saudade," due to the arduousness of trying to fit the words into a melodic structure with so many comings and goings.

This song would obviously be challenging to sing. Mar Vilaseca does a great job on this track, and the band is terrific:

Origins of Choro Form

My last post featured some points about choro, written up by my pianist friend Larry, in an email to some local musicians who have been exploring the choro repertoire. My choro expertise is limited, but as any reader of this blog knows, I enjoy trying to dig a little deeper into arcane music topics.

I thought Larry wrote a really informative piece, but I wondered about two points:

First, he mentioned that Jovino Santos Neto (who really does qualify as an expert) had said that early choro composers modeled the structure of their compositions on 17th-century classical music. Since the early choro composers (e.g., Calado, Gonzaga, Nazareth) were writing in the mid-1800s, this didn't sound quite right to me. Surely, their models would have been music as played in their own time: European classical music of the 18th and early 19th centuries, as well as dance and salon music from the same period.

To check on this question, I emailed Jovino, who graciously sent me a reply. He said that what he had meant was that "what comes from the 17th century...is the rondo form of 3-part music...In its beginnings as the urban music of Rio in the mid-19th century, choro was basically a syncopated way to play the European music that was in vogue at the time: polkas, mazurkas, waltzes."

That sounded reasonable to me. But that brings me to my second question: 

European rondo form (ABACA or some variant) is often cited as the origin of standard choro form (AABBACCA or variant). Again, I'm no expert, but that seemed open to question. The polkas and marches that I am familiar with have a basic form along the lines of AABBA - trio - A (or variant). The repeats are significant; polkas seem to be a more likely model than classical rondos. 

Searching the web, I found this paper by Marcos Mesquita (if you download it, scroll way down to where the paper begins). 

Mesquita argues that the AABBACCA choro form probably derives from European dance forms that had a “trio” section (that would be the “CC"), such as polkas and minuets. Polkas had repeats of AA, BB, and CC. Repeats are found in polkas and minuets, but are not part of the classical rondo form. Here's an excerpt from the paper:

We must point that: 1) Traditional choro form with its repeat signs is:||: A :||: B :|| A ||: C :|| A || – the recapitulations of A section after B and C areplayed by indicating da capo; 2) No rondo form has repeat signs in each section...

He points out that some pieces by early choro composers had a section designated as a "trio," in the CC position. Over time, the “trio” designation was dropped, but the form stayed the same.

This makes sense to me!

Interestingly, as Larry mentioned in his writeup, ragtime tends to have a form similar to choro. Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag, for example, is AABBAACCD. Not exactly the same as choro, but similar. Joplin's Euphonic Sounds is AABBACCA, the same as the common choro form. Here's a page from a book on Joplin that makes the same point that Mesquita does, but with regard to ragtime - that is, some music historians see rondo as an antecedent form, but it's unlikely because of the lack of transitions, and the presence of repeats. Ragtime is often mentioned as having its roots in the march; many marches begin with AABB - trio. 

There is no way that ragtime could have influenced early choro, as ragtime dates from later in the 19th century. It's also very unlikely that choro influenced ragtime. Yet both genres developed similar structures, derived from European forms.

It's likely, though, that ragtime (and jazz) influenced later choro composers like Pixinguinha, starting in the 1910s-1920s, when ragtime achieved popularity, and was available in both sheet music and recorded form. The influence of jazz continued into the bebop years, and in fact to the present.

But again, I'm no expert. Comments are welcome!

An American Jazz Pianist's Comments on Choro

My friend Larry Lewicki, an American jazz pianist with an interest in Brazilian music, wrote up some comments for some mutual friends, musicians who have been exploring the choro repertoire. I thought some readers of this blog might find it informative. Comments are welcome!

Here's Larry:

Hi All,

I just have a couple of comments on choro for you. As a jazz pianist (with some knowledge of guitar), I was introduced to choro maybe 12 years ago when I was asked to sit in with some bluegrass playing friends - they needed a guitarist. I started on steel string acoustic and subsequently bought a nylon string guitar - got rid of the pick and taught myself some RH fingerstyle techniques. Then I went to the Centrum Choro workshop 9 years ago as a guitarist and got my butt kicked (but I learned some useful RH patterns - called levadas - that I've applied to my piano playing.) Since then I've been listening to a lot of choro - attended more workshops and read books about choro, etc. Here's my current level of thought.

1) Choro is not like jazz. People talk about improvisation in choro, but I believe that it's really a different concept than for jazz. The choro melody players "improvise" by playing off the melody and just adding embellishments. While the Brazilians I've met, like Dudu Maia, can shred bebop on bandolim (Brazilian "mandolin" but really more of a smaller version of the Portuguese guitar), they typically stay very close to the melody. So it's not typical to "blow solos over the changes" when playing choro. Very different concept than with jazz head charts.

2) Choro is not a rhythm. It's not like learning the samba tamborim patterns. Though there is a standard concept of "choro" rhythm - straight 16th notes in 2/4 - the term choro is really a concept that extends to many types of Brazilian rhythms. There are choros based on Tango Brasileiro, e.g. Brejiro (side note - the term tango originated in Brazil not Argentina - based on the habanera - like the L’amour est une oiseau rebelle from the opera Carmen, 1874) - choros based on maxixe (a derivative of the African Lundu) - choro-sambas - choro-waltz - choro-baiāo - choro-cançao (though >95% of choros are instrumentals) - even choro-fado. I would even argue that a choro like "Vê si gostas" is more like a blues-choro. I believe that choro is a concept that is based around the whole ensemble articulating or supporting the melody. Melody is key - and choro melodies are typically very "notey," with long runs of 16th notes.

3) Even though a choro melody is key, the melodies are not absolutely codified like they are in classical music. I have 3 different lead sheets for the Joaquim Callado choro, Flor Amorosa - and each is different. Choros were taught aurally, and they mutated as the players got more virtuosic, adventurous and inspired. The "melody" is kind of an armature - different instruments have different characteristics. A bandolim line might alternate between a high and low note in a way you can't do on a flute - so the flute player changes the melody. A flute version may have ornaments that can't be done on a cavaquinho - and so on.

4) Choro improvisation largely happens in the accompaniment - and the accompaniment is largely based on improvised counterpoints, not chord changes per se. The most variable feature of choro performances seems to me to be in the accompaniment. The seven string guitar plays counterpoints (or baixarias) - and often the other melody players provide counterpoint simultaneously with the melody. Check out this version of Pixinguinha's waltz, Rosa, from Brasil Toca Choro - the melody is played relatively straight and passed around between the flute, clarinet and bandolim, but the accompanying musicians are all counterpointing - bandolim, clarinet, flute, 6-string guitar and 7-string guitar. Each chorus is different. I think of the counterpoints as being like 17th century baroque classical music figured bass - like you hear in Vivaldi or Bach's Brandenburg concertos. (Side note - I watched Dudu Maia teach guitarist Henrique Neto a choro he'd composed. Dudu never mentioned a chord - he just played the melody - and Henrique improvised the chords based on what scale or arpeggio he heard in the melody. It was amazing and humbling - no chart. After 10 minutes, the tune was learned.)

Chord inversions. Since counterpoint is so important in choro, often the bass line doesn’t end up on a root note. Guitarists/pianists really need to learn inversions. That’s why you will often see Eø7/Bb to A7 to keep the bass line happening.

In the B section of Flor Amorosa you’ll see

|A- |D- |E7 |A- E7 |

On guitar I might play

|A- A-/C |D- D-/F |E7 E7/D |A-/C E7/B | or maybe

|A- A-/G |D-/F (fill F to C) |E7/B (fill E to B) |A- (ascending E7 arpeggio) |

Dudu Maia says he only hears three kinds of chords: tonic, dominant and subdominant. The rest are all inversions or suspensions. When you think like that, the harmonic landscape simplifies.

5) Rondo form is very typical in choro. In 1808, the Portuguese court fled Napoleon and re-established their European capital in Rio de Janeiro (no longer just a colony - it was a European capital). Approximately 10,000 court members brought their orchestras, held dance parties and subsequently trained their slaves to play European music. (Rio was known as “the city of pianos” because the British Broadwood company sold so many Beethoven-era pianos there). Early choro players and composers were classically trained musicians. They modeled early choros on 17th century classical music, specifically polkas (hence the “notey-ness”) - married with African syncopations. Classical rondo form is used in many choros.

Rondo form involves a recurring A section; a basic form might be ABACA. A typical choro form is AABBACCA. Rondo form came about because audiences might only hear a song once (an observation I heard from a Robert Greenburg lecture series on Mozart string quartets). How does the performer imprint a song in the memory of the audience? Repetition... repeat the A section - then repeat the B section - then repeat the A section again - then two repetitions of the C section - and a final repeat of the A section. Rondo is a formal structure to help the audience hold the melodies in their heads.

Rondo form choros typically have a 16 bar long melody in the A section. My teachers have emphasized that those melodies are typically broken into 4 parts (P1, P2, P3 and P4) - each 4 bars long. P1 is the statement or proposition, P2 is the answer (often with a temporary modulation) - often P3 is very similar to P1 maybe with a different ending - P4 is the turnaround, with the most harmonic movement.

The A section sets the key - the B section is typically in a relative minor or major (depending on if the A section is major or minor). The C section or trio is in a nearby key. This set of harmonic relationships doesn’t always happen - but is very typical. (Coincidentally, the same AABBACCA variant of rondo form was also adopted by ragtime composers in the US a few decades after choro started in Rio de Janeiro).

Melodies in ensembles are often distributed between players. Consider this version of Flor Amorosa (considered to be the first choro - written in 1880 by Joaquim Callado), originally composed with a polka rhythm - see figure 3.41 page 102 from this PhD dissertation - but typically played in a Tango Brasileiro style.

The melody is distributed section by section roughly like this:

A - flute
A - clarinet (note the bandolim counterpoints)
B - flute (nice ornaments)
B - clarinet
A - bandolim
C - flute - but she hands it off to the clarinet in the P4 bars.....
C - clarinet for P1 and P2 - flute for P3 and clarinet for P4
A - flute, clarinet and mandolin unison

6) Some newer choros have a binary AABBA form (e.g., Receita de Samba). The A and B sections are typically 32 bars - and P1, P2, P3 and P4 are 8 bars apiece.

While Tico-tico No Fúba is probably the most famous choro known outside of Brazil, inside Brazil the most famous choro is Pixinguinha’s song Carinhoso (every Brazilian knows the words). Pixinguinha wouldn’t play this song in public, he left it his desk after composing it because it only had an A and B section and he felt all choros had to be in rondo form. After 18 years, he was convinced to publish and perform it. Brazilians have told me that Carinhoso is considered to be the unofficial national anthem of Brazil.

Another exception to the forms above has occurred with the Ernesto Nazareth tango, Brejeiro (1893). Originally in a binary form, AABBA with the A section in A major and the B section in E major. Jacob do Bandolim rearranged Brejeiro as a 4 part form - and its been codified that way ever since as: intro-AABB-modulation-A’A’B’B’-modulation-A-coda. Typically the A section is played in the bandolim-friendly key of G major, the B section is in D major - the A’ section is in G minor and B’ section is in Bb.

7) Choro is a very social music in Brazil - with players clustered around a table drinking and eating. A roda - or a circle party. A challenging environment for a piano player to fit into. That’s why I’m trying to learn to play melodica.

"Brasil Toca Choro" - contemporary choro videos

A friend hipped me to a recent series from Brazilian TV, "Brasil Toca Choro" (Brazil Plays Choro). There are 13 episodes on youtube, each with first-rate studio performances by some of the best contemporary choro musicians.

Even if (like me) you don't speak Portuguese, the music is very much worth your listening time.

This link will get you to an index of episodes - or, check the list below.

Here's the blurb from the introductory trailer, google-translated:

Thinking about the importance of chorinho to the construction of Brazilian identity, TV Cultura launches the channel's newest program, Brasil Toca Choro. It is in the mix of melodies of European classical music and American jazz with the African rhythm played in the terreiros of Rio de Janeiro that the pulsating heart of the choro is found. Originating in the second half of the nineteenth century, the musical rhythm has enchanted and thrilled generations for approximately 150 years.

Each program centers around an instrument, composer, or other theme:

1. Pixinguinha (the legendary choro composer)
2. Piano e primórdios (piano and origins)
3. Sopros (wind instruments)
4. Violões (guitars)
5. Acordeon (accordion)
6. Choro Canção (“choro-song” - a modernized form, predecessor of bossa nova)
7. Maestros arranjadores (great arrangers)
8. Cavaquinho (stringed instrument basic to choro)
9. Samba Chorado (samba choro)
10. Novas Linguagens (new languages)
11. Flauta (flute)
12. Outros Sotaques (other accents)
13. Bandolim (mandolin)

Here's the first program (Pixinguinha), if you would like to get started:

897 Free Choro Charts on Doce de Choro website!

Choro is a Brazilian music genre, mostly instrumental, improvisational, with a history beginning in the 19th century, predating American jazz. If you are a jazz player and not familiar with choro, you really should check it out. The repertoire is extensive and rich (a few famous composers: Pixinguinha, Jacob do Bandolim, Waldir Azevedo, K-Ximbinho). Performance styles have evolved over the years (as has American jazz), and there are some truly great performers active today.

If you are into choro, the website Doce de Choro (click here) is a gold mine - lead sheets for 897 choros are available for free download. The charts were created by Jean Pascal Leriche-Lafaurie (at least I assume so, as that is the only name listed on the website). Some of the tunes are classics, some are obscure; some are simple, some melodically and harmonically challenging.

I do play some choros with my group, with a jazz approach. I count myself as a fan and student, not an expert. You can find plenty of information about choro on the web, and plenty of performances, old and new, on Youtube.

Just for laughs, here are two recordings of a classic, "Assanhado" by Jacob do Bandolim (1918-1969). It's one of the first choros I learned.

First, here is the original recording by Jacob (click here).

Compare Jacob's original to this more modern version by two great players, Armandinho and Yamandu Costa:

Review: "Choro: A Social History of a Brazilian Popular Music"

Since this blog is primarily aimed at jazz players, I am guessing that some readers may have some familiarity with choro, others perhaps not. Choro is a Brazilian musical genre that - like jazz - began to take shape in the late 1800s, evolved stylistically over the years and through several periods of popularity, and continues today. It has always involved an element of improvisation, and incorporates Afro-Brazilian rhythms. Choro as performed today may take a form that is traditional (that is, retrospective to some earlier period in its evolution), or may take a more modern direction.

Here is Anat Cohen and the group "Choro Aventuroso," with a modern take on the 1937 standard by Severino Araujo, "Espinha de Bacalhau":

Although this book came out in 2005, I had not gotten around to it until just now: Choro: A Social History of a Brazilian Popular Music, by Tamara Elena Livingston-Isenhour and Thomas George Caracas Garcia. It's a well-written and well-researched account of the origins of choro and its evolution over the last 150+ years, with particular regard to the place of the genre in Brazilian culture, including a discussion of the role of historical Brazilian attitudes towards race and popular music.

The book is meticulously organized, which makes a review pretty easy. Here are the chapter titles, with a few comments on the contents:

1) Introduction

An overview of the book. Describes the defining features of choro in terms of style, melodic characteristics, bass, rhythm, and spirit ("malicia").

2)  Race, Class, and Nineteenth-Century Popular Music: The Modinha, the Lundu, and the Maxixe

These were the musical antecedents of choro. The modinha, a sentimental song genre, contributed lyricism to Brazilian popular styles, and contributed the basic instrumentation to choro: the "terno" of guitar, flute, and cavaquinho. The lundu was an African-influenced rhythmic dance and music style; the maxixe was a popular dance and music style that began in the 1870s. "Some believe the maxixe to be the link in the stylistic continuum between the old lundu dance and the modern urban samba."

3) The Roda de Choro: Heart and Soul of Choro

The "roda de choro" is a informal gathering to play music - a jam session - a tradition that began long before choro reached the "respectability" of recordings and radio broadcasts. The roda de choro is still an essential part of the choro ethos. A quote from Villa-Lobos biographer Vasco Mariz: "The chorão [choro devotee] had a deep feeling for spontaneous improvisation. He would put his entire soul into playing. He had a true religious feeling for the cult of choro, in which one lives to play, compose, and sing."

4) From Plantation to the City: The Rise and Development of Early Choro in Rio de Janeiro (1870-1920)

Many black musicians received musical training as slaves, in order to serve in plantation bands, which were a status symbol for the owners. After Brazilian emancipation in 1888, former slave musicians moved to the city, combining their talents with city musicians. It was in this period that the music and the term "choro" developed. Although many musicians today believe that "choro" derives from "chorar" (to cry), the authors believe it derives from "choromeleiro," a type of ensemble in colonial Brazil.

In Rio de Janeiro, choro developed as a middle-class music. "The middle-class aspects of choro practice were several...in order to be able to buy an instrument, whether, flute, cavaquinho, or guitar, one had to have at lease a modicum of disposable income. Secondly, the locations where choro gatherings took place were characteristic of middle-class dwellings and venues..." In this environment, choro developed as a primarily instrumental music, based on the form and harmonic structure of the polka, played by terno-type ensembles, wind bands, or piano. Early published choros were called "polca serenata" or "polca ligeira"; the first use of the term "choro" in published music was in 1889. This chapter includes sections on several of the most important figures in early choro: Chiquinha Gonzaga, Ernesto Nazaré, and others.

5) From the Terno to the Regional: The Professionalization of Choro

The terno, a trio of flute, guitar, and cavaquinho, was the original core choro ensemble. With the advent of silent films (requiring theater musicians), followed by recordings and radio, professional groups were formed. Choros were written in a more technical style, to show off the virtuosity of the musicians. Groups were larger (this was the period when the pandeiro and seven-string guitar came to be a standard part of the ensemble); these groups were called "regionals." The career of the legendary choro composer and bandleader Pixinguinha began in this period, c. 1915. Under the regime of dictator Gétulio Vargas (1937-1945) choro was encouraged and promoted by the government, particularly on the radio, to instill a sense of national identity and pride.

6) The Velha Guarda in the New Brazil: Choro in the 1950s and 1960s

"Velha guarda" means "old guard." As American and American-influenced music increased in popularity in Brazil in the 1950s, choro came to be regarded by the general public as a music of the past. Bossa nova emerged in the late 1950s as a music of "modernity." In the 1960s, increasing social awareness led to an increased interest in "samba de morro" (samba of the favelas) and other "roots" music. "Choro is conspicuously absent from the cultural resistance movement even though it had been strongly accociated with Brazilian nationalism since the 1920s." The authors give several reasons for this: that "as an instrumental genre, choro could not serve as a vehicle for protest lyrics"; that as a middle-class music, "choro was not associated with an oppressed class of people"; that "the Americanized style and instrumentation in the late 1940s and 1950s had come to be viewed as mainstream music without political value."

At the same time, however, "velha guarda" figures such as Garoto, Jacó do Bandolim, and Waldir de Azevedo were pushing the choro genre towards "increasing professionalism," and adding new compositions to the repertoire.

7) The Choro Revival

The 1970s saw a return of popularity of choro among young musicians and listeners, including rodas de choro, and competitions with awards. The military government of 1964-1985 played a role in supporting the choro revival; as a mostly instrumental music, choro did not have a protest content. The authors discuss the nature of musical revivals generally, and why a choro revival came about at that point in time. This choro revival ebbed in the 1980s.

8) Contemporary Choro

"By the late 1990s, choro had rebounded with a force that still shows no sign of weakening." This chapter considers stylistic trends, choro publications, pedagogy, choro on the Web, and choro abroad. A description of then-current (2005) activity presents a snapshot of the revival at the time of the book's publication.

9) Choro and the Brazilian Classical Tradition

The Brazilian classical music culture before the 1920s looked to France and Italy for a stylistic model. Beginning in the 1920s, Brazilian composers began to look to their own rich national musical traditions, including choro. Co-author Thomas Garcia is a guitarist and Villa-Lobos scholar, and Villa-Lobos' work is covered in some detail.

If you are interested in learning more about this music, I highly recommend Choro: A Social History of a Brazilian Popular Music. Click on the link, and you can order it from Amazon. It's been especially valuable to me, since I don't read or speak Portuguese; I haven't seen a better English-language book on the subject.

Far more importantly, though, you need to listen to this music. The history of recorded choro is on Youtube, and plenty of great contemporary performances. Here are just a few tracks, to get started:

A broadcast featuring some great players, playing Jacó do Bandolim's "Noitas Cariocas":

A backyard party, with Romualdo Costa (sax) and Leo Lima (accordian) playing "Espinha de Bacalhau":

Yamandu Costa and Dominguez, playing Pixinguinha's "Lamentos"

A classic video - Armandinho with the group Epoca de Ouro, playing Jacó's "Assanhado"

More Tangerine Changes

My recent post on the harmonic similarities of "Tangerine" and "Doce de Coco" got me thinking about other tunes that have that distinctive "Tangerine" feature of modulating briefly to the key a major third up, in measures 13-14 of a 32-bar form.

Here are some American "Golden Age" standards that do this:

The Touch of your Lips (Ray Noble, 1936 - OK, so he was English)
I Hadn't Anyone Till You (Ray Noble, 1938)
I'll Never Smile again (Ruth Lowe, 1940)
Tangerine  (Victor Schertzinger, 1941)
How About You (Burton Lane, 1941)
I Love You (Cole Porter, 1944)
Suddenly It's Spring (Jimmy Van Heusen, 1943)

Addendum: Evelyne (Stephane Grappelli, late 1930s or early 1940s)

Brazilian tunes that do this:

Lamentos (Pixinguinha, 1928)
Doce de Coco (B section) (Jacob do Bandolim, 1951)
Noites Cariocas (B section) (Jacob do Bandolim, 1957)
Triste (Jobim, 1967)

I'd always identified that device with "Tangerine," but obviously there are antecedents.

Thanks to Tom Simpson for pointing out the Ray Noble songs. They came earlier, and use the 2-bar modulation in the same spot, bars 13-14. "The Touch of Your Lips" (1936) seems to be the earliest one we have. Thanks also to Keith Bernstein for mentioning Irving Berlin's "Always" (1928), which also uses that device, though not exactly in the same spot in the form.

The harmony to Porter's "I Love You" seems to be a blatant "Tangerine" appropriation from beginning to end, with only a few small differences, including putting in some half-diminished II chords to give it that Cole Porter-ish minorness.

Please leave a comment below if you have a tune to add to the list. I'm looking for a 2-bar modulation up a major third, in bars 13-14.

Of course, most harmonic patterns did not originate with the popular music composers of the early/mid 20th century. Somewhere in the works of Bach or Schubert or Scott Joplin, you can probably find a modulation to the key a major third up, in measures 13-14 of a 32-bar form. If you run across anything like that, let me know!

Charts for "Tangerine" and "Doce de Coco" can be found here.

Finally, here's Pixinguinha's choro "Lamentos," played by Jacob do Bandolim. Great stuff, and pretty advanced for 1928!

Kenny Dorham, "Blue Bossa," Moacyr Silva, and "Sugestivo"

A few years ago, playing through a series of Brazilian fakebooks by Mario Mascarenas, I noticed this choro, "Sugestivo," by Moacyr Silva. It begins with a phrase so close to Kenny Dorham's Blue Bossa (beloved of jazz educators) that it just can't be a coincidence. The lead sheet in the Mascarenhas book shows the copyright date as 1958, though a comment on the Youtube page (a version since taken down) states that the tune was actually first recorded in 1952.  Dorham visited Rio in 1961. "Blue Bossa" was first recorded on Joe Henderson's album Page One in 1963.

Here's a link to Amazon for Vol. 1 of the Mascarenhas fakebooks; several other volumes are available.

This recording is from 1958: