The sounds of Brazil have long had an international impact. Like the music of Cuba, it has heavily influenced both pop and jazz, while also exporting the actual thing with considerable global success. Jazz musicians such as Herbie Mann, who once described Brazilian music as "paradise", did much to spread its influence, but the real credit must really go to the giants of bossa such as Joπo Gilberto and Antonio Carlos Jobim. It was their cool take on traditional samba which delighted young Brazilians, enraged the purists and soon found its place in the international repertoire of everyone from Cannonball Adderley to Frank Sinatra.
Eventually, bossa nova entered the treacherous territory of easy listening - but to leave it there would be to seriously undervalue its potential for sheer sophisticated beauty.
For Joyce, the Brazilian composer, musician and singer, Rio really was a musical paradise. Bossa nova was the omnipresent sound of her young years and pioneers such as Jobim and Gilberto meant everything to her. The 1960s in Brazil was an exciting time in music with bossa nova emerging as a craze which went worldwide. And Joyce, like any other Brazilian teenager, was not immune.
"There was traditional samba, which is the music of my homeland of Rio, but I was listening to bossa nova mainly. The music was growing and it was our pop music. There was pop music from outside too and I listened to everything, but I was more into bossa nova and jazz than I was into pop music. I always thought it was more creative and more interesting. It was played on the radio and everybody listened to it and went to the concerts."
The bossa nova craze went international on the back of the 1959 movie, Black Orpheus, and later with Jazz Samba, the Stan Getz/Charlie Byrd album which hit number one in the pop charts. The later album, Getz/Gilberto, was also a huge success and The Girl from Ipanema, as sung by Astrud Gilberto, became one of the best-known songs in the entire history of popular song.
Meanwhile, back in Brazil, Joyce was paying rather more attention to her older brother, many years her senior and already a professional musician with an ear for jazz. He had all the records from Miles to Monk, and soon, just by watching him, Joyce began to play guitar herself - the jazz angle setting her slightly apart from her fellow teenagers. At the age of 14, she wrote her first song.
"It was about Rio, so it was very bossa-nova influenced. All the bossa nova songs, if they weren't talking about love, were talking about the beauty of the city. It came very naturally to me to write songs and I never really decided to write one - that sort of thought doesn't come to you. It comes from inside and it's something you can't help. But music was always very present in my life. I remember when I was at school I would write music in my schoolbooks.
Joyce made her first public appearance at a folk festival in 1967. She made an immediate impact because of a song she had written with feminist lyrics - something certainly a little out of the ordinary.
"It appeared to be a bit shocking and it was very much criticised," she says. At just 20 years old, she was starting to make an impact and in 1968, released her first album. She was a new voice with a new approach.
'FEMALE composers were not very usual at that time - although Brazilian music was actually started by a woman at the end of the 19th century. Her name was Chiquinha Gonzaga and she started doing a crossover between classical music - like Chopin with the African rhythms. She was extremely popular. But after her, I don't think we had too many female composers. The role of the woman was to be the singer, and not the one behind the ideas. But that's what I wanted to do. More than being a singer, my goal was to be accepted and recognised as a musician and a composer."
Another album followed but little was heard from Joyce until the mid-1970s when Vinicius de Moraes invited her to join his band and go on a world tour. He was the man who, along with Jobim, had composed Garota de Ipanema and it was a big break for Joyce - with Jobim describing her as one of the greatest singers he has ever heard. "I felt I was being accepted into my real environment." she says, "I got to met people like Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes and they were real godfathers to me. They really embraced my music and they were my heroes absolutely."
That world tour finally took Joyce to New York, where she settled in 1977, and went on to record with the best of the city's musicians. But the story behind these 10 years from initial success, to diminishing success, to the world tour and then a new home in New York hides a political story on no small impact.
"In Brazil, we had a military government from 1964 to 1985. Twenty-one years. During the 1970s was the hardest time. The young musicians of my generation, most left for political reasons - most of them because they were having trouble with the government - and many because they had to, they were told to leave.
"Some others, like myself, decided to leave for a while to look for more free air - in my case it was more because I felt that my music needed more space. But on the other hand, a lot of people left for financial reasons too. In the mid-1960s, when bossa nova really became popular in the United States and in other countries, many bossa nova musicians left. But in the 1970s in Brazil people were beginning to be interested in other types of music - easier music."
The faction to which Joyce belonged had been named MPB - musica popular Brasiliera - and it referred to a whole generation of artists many of whom, such as Milton Nascimento and Caetano Veloso, are now big names on the international scene.
Joyce, however, was unhappy with the term and soon came up with an acronym of her own - MCB - creative music of Brazil. It seems like an overly precious point, but to Joyce it was merely a playful invention which forced home a very important point.
"In later years, MPB could be anything - including very phoney music. So my definition broadened the range of possibilities. It didn't have to be one specific category of music because every genre of music has its creative side. There are always creators that invent something and from then on everything is possible. Sometimes the big record companies then take control and it stops being creative but it always starts with creative people. The only condition for being part of Creative Music of Brazil is being creative - it's very simple."
Returning to Rio, Joyce released one of her most critically acclaimed albums, Feminina, in 1980. In 1984, her Tardes Cariocas was Brazil's album of the year and through into the 1990s, Joyce successfully concentrated her efforts on the home market. But things were changing once again internationally and new audiences, eager for fresh sounds, were emerging. The jazz dance contingent was taking comfort in Brazilian music, and tracks such as Aldeia De Ogum from that 1980 album became club hits and unleashed a renewed interest in Joyce's back catalogue. Added to a general interest in what was being called "world music", times were good for anyone producing these sounds.
"The term world music is a little restricting, . World music in Brazil could mean the music from Europe or the United States. And who designed the world map? But I think it's very good for the listener to open up to new possibilities. Back in Brazil, Brazilian music is now a very strong market too. I think the kids are buying mostly Brazilian music - not exactly creative music, but not so much Michael Jackson any more. And there is definitely a move towards a more creative wave. I certainly hope this will happen."
Still based in Rio, which she describes as "a nest" where she rests and spends time with her family, Joyce continues to tour. After a month in Europe, she is off to Japan and then back to Europe again where hard bossa, as it is currently pigeonholed, is very hip indeed.
Her most recent album, Gafieira Moderna, says it all. It's a reference to the old working-class dance halls of Rio and the music which developed there, famous for its strange harmonies and unexpected rhythms. Expect all that and more when Joyce comes to town, and brings the sounds of the Brazilian summer with her.
Joyce plays Vicar Street, Dublin, on Thursday as part of the ESB Roots and Rythym series. With Teco Cardossa (sax and flute), Rodolfo Stroeter (bass) and Tutty Moreno (drums and percussion)