[Black Sheep]

Pygmalion,
You wrote:
"Also, they attribute the music's return to a purer jazz-like form to the decline of bossa nova's US popularity in the mid-sixties. "

Although there was a sudden decline in the Bossa Nova's popularity in the mid 1960's, it was not due to the music one way or the other. In 1960, even before the Bossa Nova Dance was born, I was throwing a party in my apartment with the TV turned on. Suddenly out of the blue Chubby Checker came on the screen doing the 'TWIST'. Within seconds almost everybody in the room began imitating Chubby doing the Twist. I said to myself at that moment, 'If people can learn that dance just by looking at it, Ballroom Dancing is doomed!'
The Twist Craze was so simple and appealing that any club foot could get on the dance floor and be an instant star expert.
Within that year most of the chain studios in L.A. closed down. My Bossa Nova Dance had about an 18 month popularity where I had some very exciting bookings at Ciro's on the Sunset Strip, the Beverly Hills Hotel, and was even invited by Frank Sinatra to teach his friends at his Birthday Party in the Hollywood Hills. And a City wide Bossa Nova Contest was held in my honor at the Hollywood Palladium with almost every night club sponsoring their ten week Champion contestants as entrees at the Palladium Finals. I even had a class on Sundays at the Yucca Airport Café, sponsored by Sinatra's closest friends, Jimmy Chester Van Heusen and Johnny Haskell with students flying in on their private planes for their Bossa Nova Lessons. It was a very exciting time while it lasted.
I had my fingers around that golden ring but fate twisted my hand and that golden ring slipped away. The Twist was too strong and it pushed all the Ballroom Dances on the Back Burner, including the Bossa Nova Dance!
Black Sheep 'Sometimes it's difficult to see the benefits of a tragic lose, but they are often there', Joe Lanza 2003