It has been said that
Antonio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim was the
George Gershwin of Brazil, and there is a solid ring of truth in that, for both contributed large bodies of songs to the
jazz repertoire, both expanded their reach into the concert hall, and both tend to symbolize their countries in the eyes of the rest of the world. With their gracefully urbane, sensuously aching melodies and harmonies,
Jobim's songs gave
jazz musicians in the 1960s a quiet, strikingly original alternative to their traditional Tin Pan Alley source.
Jobim's roots were always planted firmly in
jazz; the records of
Gerry Mulligan,
Chet Baker,
Barney Kessel, and other
West Coast jazz musicians made an enormous impact upon him in the 1950s. But he also claimed that the French impressionist composer Claude Debussy had a decisive influence upon his harmonies, and the Brazilian
samba gave his music a uniquely exotic rhythmic underpinning.
As a pianist, he usually kept things simple and melodically to the point with a touch that reminds some of
Claude Thornhill, but some of his records show that he could also stretch out when given room. His guitar was limited mostly to gentle strumming of the syncopated rhythms, and he sang in a modest, slightly hoarse yet often hauntingly emotional manner.
Born in the Tijuca neighborhood of Rio,
Jobim originally was headed for a career as an architect. Yet by the time he turned 20, the lure of music was too powerful, and so he started playing piano in nightclubs and working in recording studios. He made his first record in 1954 backing singer Bill Farr as the leader of "Tom and His Band" (Tom was
Jobim's lifelong nickname), and he first found fame in 1956 when he teamed up with poet
Vinícius de Moraes to provide part of the score for a play called Orfeo do Carnaval (later made into the famous film Black Orpheus). In 1958, the then-unknown Brazilian singer
João Gilberto recorded some of
Jobim's songs, which had the effect of launching the phenomenon known as
bossa nova.
Jobim's breakthrough outside Brazil occurred in 1962 when
Stan Getz and
Charlie Byrd scored a surprise hit with his tune "Desafinado" -- and later that year, he and several other Brazilian musicians were invited to participate in a Carnegie Hall showcase. Fueled by
Jobim's songs, the
bossa nova became an international fad, and
jazz musicians jumped on the bandwagon, recording album after album of bossa novas until the trend ran out of commercial steam in the late '60s.
Jobim himself preferred the recording studios to touring, making several lovely albums of his music as a pianist, guitarist, and singer for Verve, Warner Bros., Discovery, A&M, CTI, and MCA in the '60s and '70s, and Verve again in the last decade of his life. Early on, he started collaborating with arranger/conductor
Claus Ogerman, whose subtle, caressing, occasionally moody charts gave his records a haunting ambience. When Brazilian music was in its American eclipse after the '60s, a victim of overexposure and the burgeoning
rock revolution,
Jobim retreated more into the background, concentrating much energy upon film and TV scores in Brazil. But by 1985, as the idea of
world music and a second Brazilian wave gathered steam,
Jobim started touring again with a group containing his second wife Ana Lontra, his son Paulo, daughter Elizabeth, and various musician friends. At the time of his final concerts in Brazil in September 1993 and at Carnegie Hall in April 1994 (both available on Verve),
Jobim at last was receiving the universal recognition he deserved, and a plethora of
tribute albums and concerts followed in the wake of his sudden death in New York City of heart failure.
Jobim's reputation as one of the great songwriters of the century is now secure, nowhere more so than on the
jazz scene, where every other set seems to contain at least one
bossa nova. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide
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