Joao Gilberto

João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira was released in 1980 by João Gilberto. It was recorded in 1980 live on TV Globo. In English, that would be his entire Brazilian ancestral last name written on his studio album.

One of the biggest-selling jazz albums of all time, not to mention bossa nova's finest moment, Getz/Gilberto trumped Jazz Samba by bringing two of bossa nova's greatest innovators - guitarist/singer João Gilberto and composer/pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim - to New York to record with Stan Getz. The results were magic. Ever since Jazz Samba, the jazz marketplace had been flooded with bossa nova albums, and the overexposure was beginning to make the music seem like a fad. Getz/Gilberto made bossa nova a permanent part of the jazz landscape not just with its unassailable beauty, but with one of the biggest smash hit singles in jazz history - "The Girl From Ipanema," a Jobim classic sung by João's wife, Astrud Gilberto, who had never performed outside of her own home prior to the recording session…

Nice, more light than emphatic Afro-Latin and jazz mixture by flutist Herbie Mann and composer/vocalist Joao Gilberto from 1965. The two make an effective team, with Gilberto's sometimes sentimental, sometimes impressionistic works effectively supported by Mann's lithe flute solos.

When talking about bossa nova, perhaps the signature pop music sound of Brazil, the first name that comes to mind is that of Antonio Carlos Jobim. With songs like "The Girl from Ipanema" and "Desafindo," Jobim pretty much set the standard for the creation of the bossa nova in the mid-'50s. However, as is often the case, others come along and took the genre in a new direction, reinventing it through radical reinterpretation, be it lyrically, rhythmically, or in live performance, making the music theirs. And if Jobim got credit for laying the foundation of bossa nova, then the genre was brilliantly reimagined (and, arguably, defined) by the singer/songwriter and guitarist João Gilberto. In his native country he was called "O Mito" (The Legend), a well-deserved nickname: Since he began recording in late '50s Gilberto, with his signature soft, near-whispering croon, set a standard few have equaled.

When talking about bossa nova, perhaps the signature pop music sound of Brazil, the first name that comes to mind is that of Antonio Carlos Jobim. With songs like "The Girl from Ipanema" and "Desafindo," Jobim pretty much set the standard for the creation of the bossa nova in the mid-'50s. However, as is often the case, others come along and took the genre in a new direction, reinventing it through radical reinterpretation, be it lyrically, rhythmically, or in live performance, making the music theirs. And if Jobim got credit for laying the foundation of bossa nova, then the genre was brilliantly reimagined (and, arguably, defined) by the singer/songwriter and guitarist João Gilberto. In his native country he was called "O Mito" (The Legend), a well-deserved nickname: Since he began recording in late '50s Gilberto, with his signature soft, near-whispering croon, set a standard few have equaled.