One Ipanema song helped a jazz album sweep Grammys
Antônio Carlos “Tom” Jobim fused samba with cool jazz and helped invent bossa nova. His “Garota de Ipanema” has been recorded more than 240 times. When it anchored Getz/Gilberto in 1964, that album took Album of the Year—the first jazz record to win—and the single took Record of the Year.
Born 25 January 1927 in Rio’s Tijuca district, Jobim moved as an infant to Ipanema after his parents separated. Stepfather Celso da Frota Pessoa gave him a piano and coaxed him past the fear that keyboards were “girly.” Teachers included Lúcio Branco and, from 1941, Hans-Joachim Koellreutter, who brought twelve-tone ideas to Brazil; Jobim also absorbed Pixinguinha, Ary Barroso, Debussy, and Ravel. By the early 1950s he arranged at Continental Studio; April 1953 saw his first cut, “Incerteza,” sung by Mauricy Moura.
Partnering with poet-diplomat Vinicius de Moraes on the play Orfeu da Conceição (1956) led to new songs for the film Black Orpheus (1959), partly written by phone while Moraes was posted in Montevideo. In 1958 João Gilberto’s debut album of Jobim’s “Desafinado” and “Chega de Saudade” announced bossa nova in Brazil; a 1962 Carnegie Hall appearance helped alert U.S. jazz players. Collaborations with Stan Getz and the Gilbertos yielded Getz/Gilberto (1964) and a 1966 sequel, sparking an international craze. Later landmarks include the 1967 Sinatra pairing Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim and “Águas de Março” (1972), for which Jobim wrote both Portuguese and English lyrics.
A mid-1970s Los Angeles partnership with Elis Regina produced the album Elis & Tom, their studio rapport so seamless that guitarist-producer Oscar Castro-Neves said rehearsal and hanging out blurred together. Jobim died in New York on 8 December 1994 after surgery for bladder cancer, of pulmonary embolism and cardiac arrest while recovering; Antonio Brasileiro appeared days later and won the 1995 Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album. Grandson Daniel Jobim played “The Girl from Ipanema” at Rio’s 2016 Olympic opening.
Source: Antônio Carlos Jobim
