Antônio Carlos Jobim: The Composer of Bossa Nova

Out of the samba of Rio de Janeiro, a quieter, more harmonically sophisticated music emerged at the end of the 1950s: bossa nova. Its principal composer — the man who gave it its songs — was Antônio Carlos Jobim, known to Brazil simply as Tom.^[1]

A son of Rio

Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim was born on 25 January 1927 in the Tijuca district of Rio de Janeiro.^[1] He began playing piano at fourteen and earned his early living in the nightclubs and bars of Rio, and as an arranger for a record label, before his gifts as a composer carried him to the center of Brazilian music.^[1]

The birth of bossa nova

Jobim's great innovation was a fusion: he merged the rhythm of samba with the cool, extended harmonies of modern jazz, creating an intimate new style.^[1] In 1958 the singer and guitarist João Gilberto recorded two Jobim songs — "Chega de Saudade" and "Desafinado" — and inaugurated the bossa nova movement in Brazil.^[1] Jobim's harmonic imagination and Gilberto's hushed voice and rhythmic guitar were the two halves of a revolution.

"The Girl from Ipanema" and the world

Jobim's most famous composition, "Garota de Ipanema" ("The Girl from Ipanema"), has been recorded more than 240 times and is believed to be among the most recorded popular songs in history.^[1] His collaboration with the American saxophonist Stan Getz, João Gilberto, and the singer Astrud Gilberto produced the album Getz/Gilberto (1964), which set off a bossa nova craze in the United States and around the world.^[2]

He remained a towering figure of Brazilian and global music for the rest of his life, his songbook — "Águas de Março," "Corcovado," "Wave," and dozens more — entering the permanent repertoire of jazz and popular song. He died in New York City on 8 December 1994; in 1999 Rio renamed its international airport in his honor, and in 2012 he received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.^[1]

Why he matters

Tom Jobim matters because he opened a new chapter in Brazilian music and carried it to the world. Where the samba schools gave Brazil its rhythmic heart, Jobim gave it a music of harmonic subtlety and intimate cool that conquered the global stage. As the composer of bossa nova, he stands beside the greatest songwriters of the century — the man whose melodies made the beaches of Rio a permanent part of the world's imagination.