1-Almir Chediak
Almir Chediak was born from Lebanese parents in Rio de Janeiro on June 21, 1950. Chediak began studying guitar at age seven. He was one of the pivotal figures in contemporary Brazilian popular music, both as a teacher of many internationally renowned musicians. His students included the likes of Gal Costa, Nara Leão, Cazuza, Tim Maia, Carlos Lyra, and Elba Ramalho, among numerous others. By the mid-’80s, Chediak counted among his students the children of Brazilian greats Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. Starting in 1984 with The Dictionary of Notated Chords and resuming his work three years later with Methods of Harmony and Improvisation. In 1988, Chediak and his publishing house Lumiar published a two-volume songbook that included some 135 compositions; he would later notate and publish 18 songbooks in all, spotlighting composers including Gil, Rita Lee, Edu Lobo, Vinicius de Morales, Noel Rosa, and Ary Barroso. Antonio Carlos Jobim, the subject of a 1991 three-volume set, called Chediak‘s efforts “an act of patriotism…we can now sing and play the songs, with their proper harmonies whenever we want, and that is wonderful.” Also in 1991, Chediak began arranging and producing CDs to accompany the books; his Lumiar imprint also signed artists including João Donato, Rosa Passos, Cristovão Bastos, and Carol Saboya. While nearing completion on a songbook retrospective of João Bosco, Chediak was attacked by robbers on May 25, 2003 and was shot to death; he was 52 years old.
2-Baden Powell (soloist)
Baden Powell de Aquino (August 6, 1937 – September 26, 2000) usually known simply as Baden Powell, was born in Varre-Sai in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His father, a scouting enthusiast, named him after Robert Baden-Powell (retired from the British army to found the Boy Scouts). His family relocated to a Rio suburb. The new surroundings proved profoundly influential. His house was a stop for popular musicians during his formative years. He started guitar lessons with Jayme Florence, a famous guitarist in the 1940s. He soon proved a young virtuoso, having won many talent competitions before he was a teenager. At age fifteen, he was already playing professionally, accompanying singers and bands in various styles. As a youngster, he was fascinated by swing and jazz, but his main influences were firmly rooted in the Brazilian guitar canon. Baden was one of the most prominent and celebrated Brazilian guitarists of his time. He explored the instrument to its utmost limits, playing it in a distinctive, unique manner, incorporating virtuoso classical techniques together with popular harmony and swing. He performed in many styles, including bossa nova, samba, Brazilian jazz, Latin jazz and música popular brasileira. He performed on stage during most of his lifetime, and recorded an extensive discography composed of LP and CD albums produced in Brazil and Europe, particularly in France and Germany. Baden Powell also composed many fine pieces for guitar, such as Deixa, Xangô, Simplesmente, Braziliense, Horizon, Abração em Madrid, Tristeza e solidão, Consolação, Samba, Casa Velha, Lotus, Imagem, Samba Triste, and Canto de Ossanha.
3-Caetano Veloso
Caetano Emanuel Viana Teles Veloso, better known as Caetano Veloso, is a Brazilian composer, singer, guitarist and writer. Born in 1942 in Santo Amaro da Purifica o in Brazil’s Bahia region, Veloso absorbed a rich Bahian musical heritage that was influenced by Caribbean, African, and North American pop music. Veloso first became known for his participation in the Brazilian musical movement Tropicalismo which encompassed theatre, poetry and music in the 1960s, at the beginning of the Brazilian military dictatorship. Nevertheless, it was the cool, seductive bossa nova sound of Joao Gilberto, a Brazilian superstar in the 1950s, that would later serve as the foundation for Veloso’s own intense, eclectic pop. In 1960, he moved from his hometown to Salvador in order to attend high school, and in 1963, Veloso entered the Federal University of Bahia as a philosophy student. During this time, Brazil experienced a cultural explosion in art, political thought, and music. Bossa nova, a revolutionary new musical style that combined thoughtful lyricism with subtle rhythm, became an important aspect of Brazilian modernism. Since the 1960s, Caetano Veloso has been a dominant force in contemporary Brazilian music, helping to shape his nation’s popular music. Veloso matured during the 1980s and 1990s into a Brazilian renaissance man: a poet, writer, and painter as well as a revered musician.“One might theorize that Caetano is the great singer America never had,”explained Ben Ratliff in Spin magazine in June of 1999. In our nation, Caetano has no equal.” Inspired like many young Brazilians by the movement, Veloso started writing criticism for the local newspaper, acting in avant-garde theater, and singing bossa nova in bars. Following his sister Maria Bethnia– a very successful singer in her own right–to Rio de Janeiro so she could act in a stage play in the mid-1960s, the 23-year-old Veloso initiated his own career by winning a lyric writing contest with his song “Um Dia” and was quickly signed to the Phillips label. His music career began in earnest in 1965 when he started recording in Rio. In 1967, Caetano Veloso released his first album Domingo, which became a popular work thanks to songs like “Coracao Vagabundo” and “Domingo”. However, by that time Caetano was already developing the music sounds that shaped the Tropicalia movement. In fact, the same year he produced his album Caetano Veloso, which included his famous song “Tropicalia.” This production also included other celebrated tracks like “Alegria, Alegria” and “Onde Andaras.”In 1968, Caetano Veloso got together with his colleagues from Bahia and along artists like Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa and Os Mutantes released Tropicalia: Ou Panis Et Circensis, an album that became the leading flag of the Tropicalia movement. However, the Brazilian dictatorship banned Tropicalia music because of its critical lyrics against any sort of oppression. As a result, many of the artists of the Tropicalismo movement in Brazil were jailed and forced to exile. Caetano Veloso was one of them and in 1969 he was forced to leave the country. He spent the next three years of his life in London. Caetano Veloso went back to Brazil in 1972. He returned to live in a country that was still dominated by a dictatorial regime. In fact, he had to life along the military rule until 1985. Nevertheless, Caetano Veloso enjoyed prolific years since he returned to his country. He has produced some of the best songs in Brazilian music and his long career producing music has been one of the most successful ones in the history of Brazilian music. His talent as a songwriter was even acknowledge by the New York Times, which referred to Caetano Veloso as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.
4-Carlos Lyra
Carlos Eduardo Lyra Barbosa, better known as Carlos Lyra, is a Brazilian singer and composer of bossa nova and brasileira pop-music . He was bornon May 11, 1939. He and Antonio Carlos Jobim, were the first two music composers, together with lyricists Vinicius de Moraes and Ronaldo Boscoli, to be recorded by João Gilberto on his first LP entitled Chega de Saudade (1959), which was called the first generation of Bossa Nova. His first song to be recorded was “Menina” (1954), issued as a single by Sylvia Telles in 1955, with “Foi a noite” by Antonio Carlos Jobim on the other side of the record. The writers first met because of this single, when Jobim called Lyra “the other side of the record”. At that time, both were writing their own music & lyrics creating a coloquial and completely new style. They wrote about their own experiences and feelings. A completely different lyrical style from most songs written that time. His first compositions (music &lyrics), from 1954 to 1956 included: “Quando chegares”; “Menina”;” Barquinho de Papel”; “Ciúme”; “Criticando” and “Maria Ninguém” (once claimed by Jacqueline Kennedy to be her favorite song),.In 1957 he started to compose together with the lyricist Ronaldo Bôscoli, songs such as “Lobo bobo”, “Saudade fez um samba” and” Se é tarde me perdoa”. In 1958 wrote “Aruanda” and “Quem quiser encontrar o amor”, with Geraldo Vandré. In 1960 he started to compose together with Vinicius de Moraes, songs as “Você e eu”; “Coisa mais linda”, Sabe você?”, “Samba do Carioca”; “Maria Moita” and many others. They wrote together a musical play, in 1962, called “Pobre Menina Rica” (Poor little rich girl blue). In 1961 he was one of the five founders of CPC (Center of Popular Culture) where he started to write songs for cinema and theater. He also wrote the song“Influência do Jazz”, one of the songs he sang at the Bossa Nova Concert at Carnegie Hall, in 1962. He continues to compose, record, and perform today.
Celso Fonseca (born November 15, 1956) is a Brazilian composer, producer, guitarist and singer. He is noted as part of the Brasileira or Brazilian Pop-musicsince the 1980s, initially as accompanist and composer, then producer, and since the mid–1990s as an artist in his own right. He was born in Rio de Janeiro into a family with no musical roots and not a single musician in the immediate family tree (other than a grandmother who may or may not have sung in church choir). His father nonetheless instilled in him an interest in classical music. At the age of 10, he found an acoustic guitar at his cousin’s house and immediately fell in love with the instrument. “Strangely, it seemed quite familiar to me,” he would later recall in his official website biography. “On that day, I decided that it would be my instrument.” When Fonseca was 12 his father gave him a guitar. He began studying the instrument, taking private lessons. His real interest at the time, however, was to learn songs by British rock group the Beatles, and these he ended up teaching himself. As his musical ability progressed, he became interested in both jazz and electric guitar.He soaked up the vibrant bossa nova that characterized Rio in the early 1960s. “We lived in a beautiful area in the mountains overlooking the city, with a lot of birds, a lot of trees, a lot of sky,” he told Britain’s Telegraph newspaper. “It was a very rich, intense time when people were finding new ways of saying things, not only in music, but in architecture, literature and the visual arts. Jobim and João Gilberto’s music was always on the radio–sophisticated music created by the middle class, but you’d hear people everywhere in the streets singing it. I’m still inspired by the atmosphere of that time. I carry it around inside me, and I try to bring it alive in my music.” Although he’d dreamed as a child of becoming a physician like his father, Fonseca briefly attended journalism school. At 19, however, he succumbed to his lifelong passion and became a musician. By 1981 he was playing guitar for Gilberto Gil’s band and toured with him the following year. “My debut was with him at the Montreaux Festival, in Switzerland,” he recalled on his personal website. “At first, I would not go to Europe; I would only play in Brazil. But, after all, I went and that’s when my journey with Gil began, which also led me to work with other great artists of the Brazilian music, as a guitar player, producer and arranger.” According to his official website biography, he quickly became known as “Gil’s guitar player” and was soon touring abroad and playing festivals in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Europe. He wrote his first compositions at age 23, and eventually began to write lyrics to accompany his music, sometimes with the help of his musical partner, Ronaldo Bastos, his collaboration with this composer began in 1983. Other musicians began to take notice, and artists such Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Maria Bethânia, and Milton Nascimento recorded his songs. “Even now I work every day to enhance myself as a composer,” he commented. Their song “Sorte” was recorded by Gal Costa and Caetano Veloso. In 1986 he had released a first recording Minha Cara. He also worked with Milton Nascimento, Djavan, Adriana Calcanhoto, Bebel Gilberto, Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Elza Soares, Marisa Monte, João Bosco, Leila Pinheiro, and Jorge Benjor. His third collaborative album with Ronaldo Bastos Juventude / Slow Motion Bossa Nova was nominated for two Latin Grammys as Best Brazilian Pop-music. In 1986 Fonseca began to work as a producer for artists such as Gil, Vinícius Cantuária, and Virginia Rodrigues Gal Costa, Daniela Mercury, Daúde and others.. His work on the Daúde’s 1996 debut album won the Sharp Music Prize for Best Pop/Rock Arranger. Fonseca also worked on Gil’s album Quanta Live, which won a Grammy for Best World Music Album in 1998.
Fonseca told Telegraph. “bossa It’s a kind of slowed-down samba, that can be applied to anything. Stevie Wonder songs, Gershwin can all be bossa nova. I’ve taken the aspects of bossa nova that I love–the spaciousness, the melodic economy–and I’ve tried to push them towards the future.”
His best-known international releases so far are the two albums he has recorded for Crammed Discs‘ sub-label Ziriguiboom: Natural (2003) and Rive Gauche Rio (2005). In 2003 Fonseca made his international solo debut as a singer-songwriter with Natural. “Like the classic recordings of bossa nova, a style in which his music is obviously rooted, Natural is smooth, smart and casually sensual,” said the Washington Post. “Backed by a small group, Fonseca’s singing rarely needs to rise above the intimate whisper to make its points.” Fonseca’s acoustic guitar playing, wrote a BBC reviewer, “is understated but sublime throughout and although three tracks with English, rather than Portuguese, lyrics feels a little like one too many, his crooning vocals do suit the material down to the ground in either language.” Fonseca’s hushed voice and simplicity are reminiscent of the performances of Brazilian icon Caetano Veloso. “Others may go for brass, big bands and backing singers, but Fonseca prefers the minimalist approach,” wrote the Guardian praising his “mood of gentle, exquisite melancholy.” by Brett Allan King.
Fonseca has been credited with modernizing bossa nova, adapting the music of the 1960s for a twenty-first-century audience. “Bossa nova is a way of playing and singing,”
6-Chico Buarque (pseudonym: “Julinho da Adelaide” when the censors, in 1974, banned any song authored by Chico Buarque.)
Francisco “Chico” Buarque de Hollanda (born June 19, 1944 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), popularly known as Chico Buarque is a singer, guitarist, composer, dramatist, writer and poet. He is best known for his music, which often includes social, economic and cultural commentary on Brazil and Rio de Janeiro in particular. Buarque came from an intellectually privileged family background—his father Sérgio Buarque de Holanda was a well-known historian, academic ,sociologist and journalist and his mother Maria Amélia Cesário Alvim was a painter and pianist. He is also brother of the singer Miúcha and politician Ana de Hollanda. Buarque lived in several locations throughout his childhood, though mostly in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Italy. He wrote and studied literature as a child and came to music through the bossa nova compositions of Tom Jobim and João Gilberto. He performed music throughout the 1960s as well as writing a play that was deemed dangerous by the Brazilian military dictatorship of the time. Buarque, along with several of his fellow musicians, were threatened by the government and eventually left Brazil in 1970. He moved to Italy again. However, he came back to Brazil in 1972, one year before the others, and continued to record albums, perform, and write, though much of his material was not allowed by government censors. He released several more albums in the 1980s and published three novels in the 1990s and 2000s, all of which were acclaimed critically.
As a child, he was impressed by the musical style of bossa nova, specifically thework of Tom Jobim and João Gilberto. He was also interested in writing, composing his first short story at 18 years oldand studying European literature, also at a young age.
Buarque decided to study architecture at the University of São Paulo, but this choice did not lead to a career in that field; for Buarque often skipped classes. He made his public debut as musician and composer in 1964, rapidly building his reputation at music festivals and television variety shows when bossa nova rhythm came to light and Nara Leão recorded three of his songs. His eponymous debut album exemplified his future work, with catchy sambas characterized by inventive wordplay and an undercurrent of nostalgic tragedy. Buarque had his first hit with “A Banda” in 1966, written about a marching band, and soon released several more singles. Although playing bossa nova, during his career, samba and Brasileira pop-music would also be widely explored. Despite that, Buarque was criticized by two of the leading musicians at the time, Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil as they believed his musical style was overly conservative. However, an existentially themed play that Buarque wrote and composed in 1968, Roda Viva (“Live Circle”), was frowned upon by the military government and Buarque served a short prison sentence because of it. He left Brazil for Italy for 18 months in 1970, returning to write his first novel in 1972, which was not targeted by censors. At this time his thinly-veiled protest single “Apesar de Você” (“In spite of You” – in reference to the military dictatorship) was also produced. (“In spite of you”) was overlooked by the military censors, becoming an important anthem in the democratic movement. After selling over 100,000 copies, the single was eventually censored and removed from the market. At one point in 1974, the censors banned any song authored by Chico Buarque. Then, he created a pseudonym, naming himself “Julinho da Adelaide”, complete with life history and interviews to newspapers. “Julinho da Adelaide”authored songs such as “Jorge Maravilha” and “Acorda amor” before he was outed in Jornal do Brasil news story. Buarque also wrote a play named Calabar, about the Dutch invasion of Brazil in the seventeenth century,drawing parallels with the military regime. Despite the censorship, songs such as “Samba de Orly” (1970), “Acorda amor” (1974, as “Julinho da Adelaide”) manifested Buarque’s continuing opposition to the military regime.
During the 1970s and 1980s, he collaborated with filmmakers, playwrights, and musicians in further protest works against the dictatorship. Buarque approached the 1983 Concert for Peace in Nicaragua as a valid forum to vocalize his strong political views. Throughout the decade, he crafted many of his songs as vehicles to describe the re-democratization of Brazil. The Concert for Peace in Nicaragua was one in a concert series known as the “Central American Peace Concerts.” These concerts featured various Latin American artists. The political turmoil that plagued this era were expressed in many of Buarque’s songs. He later wrote Budapeste, a novel that achieved critical national acclaim and won the Prêmio Jabuti, a Brazilian literary award comparable to the Man Booker Prize.
7-Djavan
Djavan Caetano Viana, better known as Djavan, is a Brazilian singer/songwriter & guitar player born 27 January 1949 in Alagoas, Brazil. Djavan combines traditional Brazilian rhythms with popular music drawn from the Americas, Europe and Africa. He can arguably be categorized in any of the following musical genres: Brasileira or Brazilian pop music, samba, bossa, or latin dance. Born into a poor family in Maceió (capital of Alagoas, Northeastern Brazil), Djavan formed the group Luz,Som, Dimensão (LSD – “Light, Sound, Dimension”), playing Beatles’ singles. In 1973, Djavan moved to Rio de Janeiro and started singing in local nightclubs. After competing in several festivals, he gained attention and recorded the album A Voz, o Violão e a Arte de Djavan in 1976. The album included the song “Flor de Lis,” which is his most memorable hits. Djavan’s compositions have been recorded by Al Jarreau, Carmen McRae, The Manhattan Transfer, Aaron Goldberg,Loredana Bertè, Eliane Elias, Lee Ritenour; and in Brazil by Gal Costa, Dori Caymmi and Nana Caymmi (son and daughter of Dorival Caymmi), Lenine, João Bosco,Chico Buarque, Daniela Mercury, Ney Matogrosso, Dominguinhos, Caetano Veloso, Maria Bethânia, and other artists. The 1988, Epic Records single, “Stephen’s Kingdom,” featured a guest appearance from Stevie Wonder. In 1998, Djavan contributed “Dukeles” to the AIDS benefit compilation album Onda Sonora: Red Hot + Lisbon produced by the Red Hot Organization. In 1999, his live concert double-volume album, Ao Vivo, sold 1.2 million copies and the song, “Acelerou” became the Brazilian Song of the Year at the 2000 Latin Grammy Awards.
His music has been named ‘South American Global Pop’ although it retains enough ethnic flavour to please its native audience too.
8-Gilberto Gil
Gilberto Passos Gil Moreira (born June 26, 1942 in Salvador, an industrial city in the northeast of Brazil,), better known as Gilberto Gil is a Brazilian singer, guitarist, and songwriter. Gil’s musical style incorporates an eclectic range of influences, including Rock music, Jazz, African music, reggae (pioner in Brazil) Brazilian genres including bossa-samba and forró, a style of music from Brazil’s northeast.,
Gil started to play music as a child and was still a teenager when he joined his first band. He began his career not only as a bossa nova musician but also as a key figure in the Brasileira or Brazilian pop-music and tropicália movements of the 1960s, alongside artists such as longtime collaborator Caetano Veloso.
Gil spent much of his childhood in Ituaçu. Nearby to Salvador. Gil remained in Ituaçu until he was nine years old, returning to Salvador for secondary school.
Gil’s interest in music was precocious: “When I was only two or two and a half,” he recalled, “I told my mother I was going to become a musician. Early on, he began to play the drums and the trumpet, through listening to Bob Nelson on the radio. Gil’s mother was the “chief supporter” in his musical ambitions; she bought him an accordion and, when he was ten years old, sent him to music school in Salvador which he attended for four years. As an accordionist, Gil first played classical music, but grew more interested in the folk and popular music of Brazil. He was particularly influenced by singer and accordion player Luiz Gonzaga.
During his years in Salvador, Gil also encountered the music of songwriter Dorival Caymmi. While in Salvador, Gil was introduced to many other styles of music, including American big band jazz. In 1950 Gil moved back to Salvador with his family. It was there, while still in high school, that he joined hisfirst band, Os Desafinados (The Out of Tunes), in which he played accordion and vibraphone and sang. Os Desafinados was influenced by American rock and roll musicians like Elvis Presley. The band was active for two to three years. Soonafterwards, inspired by Brazilian star João Gilberto, he settled on the guitar as his primary instrument and began to play bossa nova.
Gil met guitarist and singer Caetano Veloso at the Universidade Federal da Bahia (Federal University of Bahia) in 1963. The two immediately began collaborating and performing together, releasing a single and EP soon afterwards.
Gil collaborated on the landmark 1968 album Tropicália: ou Panis et Circenses, whose style was influenced by The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, an album Gil listened to constantly. Gil describes Tropicália: ou Panis et Circenses as the birth of the tropicália movement. As Gil describes it, tropicália (or Tropicalismo) was a conflation of musical and cultural developments that had occurred in Brazil during the 1950s and 1960s.
He moved to São Paulo in 1965 and his first hit as a solo artist was the 1969 song “Aquele Abraço“.
The Brazilian military regime that took power in 1964 saw both Gil and Veloso as a threat. In February 1969 Gil and Veloso were arrested by the Brazilian military government, brought from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, and spent three months in prison and another four under house arrest, before being freed on the condition that they leave the country. Thereafter, Gil and Veloso were exiled to London, both took a house in Chelsea, sharing it with their manager and wives. Gil was involved in the organisation of the 1971 Glastonbury Free Festival and wasexposed to reggae while living in London; he recalls listening to Bob Marley (whose songs he later covered), Jimmy Cliff, and Burning Spear. He was heavily influenced by and involved with the city’s rock scene as well, performing with Yes, Pink Floyd, and the Incredible String Band. In addition Gil attended performances by jazz artists, including Miles Davis and Sun Ra. Gil returned to state of Bahia in 1972 and continued his musical career, as well as working as a politician and environmental advocate. Gil participated in a resurgence of the Afro-Brazilian afoxé tradition in Carnaval, joining the Filhos de Gandhi (Sons of Gandhi) performance group, which only allowed black Brazilians to join.
In the late 1970s he left Brazil for Africa and visited Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, and Nigeria. He also worked with Jimmy Cliff and released a cover of “No Woman, No Cry” with him in 1980, a number one hit that introduced reggae to Brazil.
In 1998 the live version of his album Quanta won Gil the Grammy Award for Best World Music Album. In 2005 he won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album for Eletracústico. In May 2005 he was awarded the Polar Music Prize by Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in Stockholm, the prize’s first Latin American recipient.
In 2010 he released the album Fé Na Festa, a record devoted to forró.
From 2003 to 2008, he served as Brazil’s Minister of Culture in the administration of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
9- Jayme Marques Serrano
Brazilian musician, arranger, guitar player and composer, born in 1936 in Campo Grandecapital of Mato Grosso do Sul, June 12, 1936.
When he was a child he starts to develop a great love of music, which led him to teach himself how to play different instruments, focus its priority on guitar. When he was 14, his family left the Midwest to move to live in Rio de Janeiro, where he combined studies, work and weekend performances in dance orchestras of Rio de Janeiro .
In 1956, at 20 years old, he moved to São Paulo, the largest and most populous city in the country , where he participated as a guitarist on various recording sessions and jazz concerts.
In 1957 he met the great Argentinian pianist Robledo, which invites you to be part of your group beside the famous saxophonist Gato Barbieri. With them would land a few years later for the first time in Europe, coming to Portugal and then to Spain, working for a year in the most prestigious halls and also participating in recording sessions for different discs and movies.
Upon arrival in Spain, and after conducting a preliminary screening test, he entered the Society of Authors of Spain as a composer, thus integrating into the world of professional music in the country. With his own orchestra “Orquesta Orfeu” he introduce, beside the pianist Sérgio Mendes, the “bossa nova” and “jazz samba” in Europe.
From this time he began also collaborating with local musicians such as Augusto Algueró, Pedro Iturralde, Tete Montoliu or Juan Carlos Calderón, among others , keeping the first flamenco- Brazilian fusion with young Paco de Lucía. Finally, I decided to take up residence in Spain, was invited by the popular group Els Valldemossa in Palma de Mallorca, where he spent eight years of his life. He began this period as arranger and musical director of the show Tagomago night club magazin, shortly after to create the Balearic Big Band. Later Augusto Algueró participate in the direction of Musical Mallorca, finishing their professional and personal step on the island, leading his big band in a concert at the Auditorio de Mallorca in memory of Duke Ellington, considered the greatest jazz composer all time.
In 1975, he get back to Madrid making a new Big Band (“Jayme Marques and his friends”) with which set to music from a famous TV show at Saturday night.
He also began to participate in various jazz festivals, to highlight its performance in the Barcelona Jazz Festival 1978 next de Núria Feliu and others, or the prize in 1.er Jazz Festival Sitges, with Ray Charles and Lionel Hampton, being invited by the latter..
During the 80s and 90s he continuous touring the world, carrying Brazilian music to countries like Japan, Germany , UK, Italy, France, Portugal , Lebanon , Greece, Switzerland, Belgium, Chile, Sweden, Finland, Angola,Mozambique and even Oceania. Performing in clubs like Camden Jazz Café (London) and Whisky Jazz Club (Madrid) Jayme Marques gave impressive samples musical professionalism both yours and from his companions, recognized jazz musicians such as percussionist Tito Duarte, drummer Manolo Heredia, saxophonist Jorge Pardo , singer Pedro Rui Blas, percussionist and performer of other instruments like Renato Barcelos, trumpeter Antonio Ximénez, bassist Juan Carlos Mendoza and so countless artists who have participated accompanying the best melodies of bossa nova and samba jazz .
10-Joao Gilberto
João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira, known as João Gilberto (was born in 1931), is a Brazilian singer, guitarist and the father of Bossa Nova as a new music genre in the late 1950s. João Gilberto was born in Juazeiro, Bahia. His grandfather bought him his first guitar at the age of 14. After trying his luck as a radio singer in Salvador, Bahia, the young Gilberto was recruited in 1950 as lead singer of the vocal quintetGarotos da Lua and moved to Rio de Janeiro. A year and a half later, he was dismissed from the group for his lack of discipline (he would often show up late to rehearsals or not at all). João Gilberto’s first recordings were released in 1951. In 1955 he wasQuitandinha Serenaders group, who took him to Porto Alegre in southern Brazil. In the same year he spent eight months with his sister in Diamantina, where he sequestered himself and played day and night in a little bathroom (because of the improved acoustic), forging a personal style for voice and guitar. It is no wonderthat his father take him to a psychiatric facility where he was discharged in a week The next year (1956) he returned to Rio and struck up old acquaintances, most significantly Antonio Carlos Jobim, who was by then working as a composer, producer and arranger with Odeon Records. Jobim was impressed with Gilberto’s new style of guitar playing, and set about finding a suitable song to pitch the style to Odeon management. João Gilberto often eschews all accompaniment except his guitar. The singing style he developed is almost whispering. He creates his tempo tensions by singing ahead or behind the beat. in 1958 JG records “Chega de Saudade“, the first bossa-nova, a Gilberto’s distinctive style. By 1962, bossa nova had been embraced by North American jazz musicians. Stan Getz, invited Gilberto and Jobim to collaborate on album Getz/Gilberto. The Girl from Ipanema, a Jobim/de Moraes composition, singed by his wife Astrud, became a worldwide pop music standard
11-Louis Bonfa
Bonfá was born on October 17, 1922, in Rio de Janeiro. He began teaching himself to play guitar as a child; later he studied in Rio with Uruguayan classical guitarist Isaías Sávio from the age of twelve. These weekly lessons entailed a long, harsh commute by rail and on foot from his family home in the western rural outskirts of Rio de Janeiro to the teacher’s home in the hills of Santa Teresa. Given Bonfá’s extraordinary dedication and talent for the guitar, Sávio excused the youngster’s inability to pay for his lessons.
He was a member of the vocal group Quitandinha Serenaders in the late 1940s.Some of his compositions were recorded and performed by Brazilian crooner Dick Farney in the 1950s. It was through Farney that Bonfá was introduced to Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, the leading songwriting team behind the worldwide explosion of Brazilian jazz/pop music in the late 1950s and 1960s.Bonfá collaborated with these and with other prominent Brazilian musicians and artists in productions of de Moraes’ anthological play Orfeu da Conceição,which several years later gave origin to Marcel Camus‘ legendary film “Black Orpheus“ (Orfeu Negro in Portuguese). Bonfá wrote some of the original music featured in the film, including the numbers “Samba de Orfeu” and his most famous composition, “Manhã de Carnaval“, which has been among the top ten standards played worldwide, according toThe Guinness Book of World Records.
As a composer and performer, Bonfá was at heart an exponent of the bold, lyrical, lushly orchestrated, and emotionally charged samba-canção style that predated the bossa nova style. Jobim, João Donato, Dorival Caymmi, and other contemporaries were also essentially samba-canção musicians until the sudden, massive popularity of the young Gilberto’s unique style of guitar playing and expressively muted vocals transformed the music of the day into the music of the future. Bonfá became a highly visible ambassador of Brazilian music in the United States beginning with the famous November 1962 Bossa Nova concert at New York‘s Carnegie Hall.
Luiz Bonfá worked with American musicians such as Quincy Jones, George Benson, Stan Getz, and Frank Sinatra, recording several albums while in United States. Elvis Presley sang a Bonfá composition, “Almost in Love”, in the 1968 MGM film “Live a Little, Love a Little”. Bonfá died in Rio de Janeiro on January 12, 2001. He was 78 years old.
12-Marcio Faraco
Márcio Faraco was born in Alegrete, a small town in southern Brazil. The enforced nomadism of his father meant that the young Márcio was able to integrate most of the forms of traditional music, including the samba, the choro and the baião, very early on. His family settled in Brasília in 1975. He was now just 16.
He decided in 1988 to try his luck as a songwriter/composer/singer in Rio de Janeiro. In 1991 he went to live in the South of France with his French wife, whom he’d met a few years earlier in Rio. He got to know other Brazilian musicians living in France and formed a trio that went from bar to bar along the beaches and to the parties and receptions on the Riviera, as well as Eddie Barclay’s famous “white nights”. He decided to try his luck in Paris, where he composed and wrote even more lyrics for about seven years, before a record company finally showed interest in him and his work. Three albums emerged from this partnership: Ciranda (2000), Interior (2002) Com Tradição (2005). After the cheerful intimacy of the first album, the introspective minimalism of the second, and the extrovert traditionalism of the third, the acoustic Invento (2007), Um Rio (2008) that celebrates 50 years of Bossa Nova and is his latest creation O Tempo (2011) on Le Chant du Monde. Márcio’s discography could be summed up in this apt sentence from Rémy Kolpa Kopoul, ‘talent-spotter’ on Radio Nova: “Like a self-questioning, serene stage in his itinerary, one bordering on asceticism, Faraco has marked out his territory.”
13-Milton Nascimento
Milton Nascimento was born October 26, 1942, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is a prominent Brazilian singer–songwriter and guitarist. Nascimento’s mother was a maid (doncella), Maria Nascimento. As a baby, Milton Nascimento was adopted by a couple who were his mother’s former employers; Josino Brito Campos, a bank employee, mathematics teacher and electronic technician and Lília Silva Campos, a music teacher and choir singer. When he was 18 months old, Nascimento’s biological mother died, and he moved with his adopted parents to the city of Três Pontas, in the state of Minas Gerais.
Nascimento was an occasional DJ on a radio station that his father once ran. He lived in the boroughs of Laranjeiras and Tijuca in Rio de Janeiro.
In 1963, he moved to Belo Horizonte, where his friendship with Lô Borges led to the Clube da Esquina (“corner club”) movement. Members included Beto Guedes, Toninho Horta, Wagner Tiso, and Flávio Venturini, with whom he shared compositions and melodies. One composition was “Canção do Sal”, which was first interpreted by Elis Regina in 1966 and led to a television appearance with Nascimento. The collective, as well as some others, released Clube da Esquina in 1972.
Nascimento is famous for his falsetto and tonal range,more than by his guitar skills but is also good with the instrument.
Nascimento’s international breakthrough came with his appearance on jazzsaxophonist Wayne Shorter‘s 1974 album Native Dancer. This led to widespread acclaim, and collaborations with stars such as Paul Simon, Cat Stevens, George Dukeand Quincy Jones and the band Earth, Wind and Fire, Pat Metheny, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Jack DeJohnette, Nana Vasconcelos, Jon Anderson, James Taylor, and Peter Gabriel. Through his friendship with guitarist Warren Cuccurullo, Nascimento came to work with the pop rock band Duran Duran in 1993. In 2004, he worked with the Brazilian Heavy Metal band Angra, in the song “Late Redemption”. The song is in the Temple of Shadows album.
14-Oscar Castro-Neves, a good exemple of bossa-jazz fusion.
Oscar Castro-Neves was born in Rio de Janeiro, May 15, 1940, one of triplets (trillizos) in a highly musical family, was a Brazilian guitarist, arranger, and composer who is considered a founding figure in Bossa nova.His first instrument was the cavaquinho, the small Brazilian guitar used in such traditional styles as choro. He soon added the piano and classical guitar to his repertoire and began performing with his three brothers — pianist Mário, bassist Iko and drummer Léo. At 16 he had a national hit with Chora Tua Tristeza. In 1962, a year before “The Girl From Ipanema” became a Top 10 hit, he helped lead the Bossa Nova invasion of the U.S., playing a central role as a performer and accompanist for other noted Brazilian musicians at the historic presentation of Brazil’s new music at Carnegie Hall. He went on to work with a diverse array of musicians including João Gilberto, Eliane Elias, and the blind soul-woman Diane Schuur. During the 1970s and early 1980s he was member of the Paul Winter Consort. He lived in Los Angeles, California where he worked as an orchestrator for several films including Blame it on Rio and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.
He is well known for his distinctive guitar style and teacher of the great guitaristToquinho
Following his U.S. debut, Oscar and his quartet toured in the illustrious company of the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet, the Stan Getz Quartet, the Lalo Schifrin Trio and the Laurindo de Almeida Quartet before he returned to Brazil to resume a busy schedule as an arranger and producer. In 1971 he made Los Angeles his permanent home, joining Sergio Mendes’ Brazil ’66 group as the featured guitarist, music director and vocal coach. When he left the group in 1981, he had recorded more than 15 albums with Mendes, had co-producer many, and had appeared in concert in dozens of the world’s major cities.
In a review of his performance with saxophonist Joe Henderson, Reuben Jackson of The Washington Post wrote, “The enthusiasm and beauty of guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves seemed to ignite fires beneath the ensemble.” Britt Robson of The Star Tribune commented that “It was apparent that guitarist Oscar Castro-Neves was a collaborative catalyst who expertly shaded the tone and spurred the creativity of everyone around him.”
Among the most notable records is Color and Light – Jazz Sketches on Sondheim, chosen as one of the Top Jazz Albums of the year by Billboard Magazine and one of the Ten Best Albums of the year by Time Magazine;
As a music director, Oscar directed for seven years a night of Brazilian music at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, which boasted a regular attendance of over 14,000 people.
He died of cancer in Los Angeles in September 27, 2013
15- Paulinho da Viola (more samba tan bossa but both styles are brother music sisters)
Paulo César Batista de Faria, Paulinho da Viola, was born in Botafogo, traditional neighborhood in the southern zone of Rio de Janeiro,on November 12, 1942. and is a Brazilian singer/songwriter, guitar, cavaquinho and mandolin player, known for hissophisticated harmonies and soft, gentle singing voice. Born to a family deeply rooted in the samba tradition, Paulinho met and befriended much of Rio’s samba elite as a child. His father was a guitar player and musicians like Pixinguinha and Jacob do Bandolim would often come to his house for rehearsals, which Paulinho watched for hours on end. He began writing his own songs as a teenager, but never considered a career as a professional musician until he met poet Hermínio Bello de Carvalho in 1964. By then, Paulinho was working as a teller at a bank in Rio de Janeiro, and recognized Hermínio from the jam sessions at Jacob do Bandolim’s house. The two became close friends and soon began writing music together. The first song they wrote together was Duvide-o-dó, recorded by singer Isaurinha Garcia. He then began performing his own songs at a restaurant in Rio, owned by samba legend Cartola and his wife.
Son of musician Cesar Faria, Paulinho da Viola grew up in a musical environment naturally. Inits infancy in Botafogo, he had ever told with music by his father, a member of the set guitarist Golden Age. In testing the whole family , Paulinho met Jacob ‘s Mandolin and Pixinguinha , among many other musicians who gathered to cry and eventually sing waltzes and sambas from different eras .
Paulinho ‘s work today is seen as a link between various popular traditions like samba , carnival and crying , and his forays into compositions for guitar and avant-garde pieces . One of the greatest representatives of samba and heir to the legacy of musicians like Top Hat, Candela and Nelson Cavaquinho shows that is always renewing itself and producing without abandoning their principles and aesthetic values.
He got his famous nickname (Paulinho da Viola) in 1965, when he was a member of the samba group A Voz do Morro (“the voice of the hills”), alongside Zé Keti and Oscar Bigode. After their first recording session, a publicist from the record label reportedly told him: “‘Paulo César’ is not a samba name!”. Zé Keti and journalist Sérgio Cabral eventually came up with the nickname “Paulinho da Viola” (“Paulie Guitar”).
By the 1970s, Paulinho was at the most prolific stage of his career, releasing an average of one album per year. His productivity and popularity had waned by the mid-1980s, when he decided to focus more on his songwriting. In 1996 he regained notoriety after releasing the much-acclaimed album Bebadosamba, in which he once again joined forces with Hermínio Bello de Carvalho and Elton Medeiros, his early songwriting partners.
Da Viola is truly a traditionalist in that his compositions have always stayed away from social commentary. However, other samba stars such as Martinho da Vila, who is four years older, and Chico Buarque, who is two years younger and the son of white intellectuals, have added biting political and social commentary to their compositions. Perhaps due to his mild social stance, beautiful melodies and gentle personality, Da Viola is probably the most beloved composer of traditional samba music in the second half of the 20th century.
A 2003 documentary called Meu Tempo é Hoje (My Time is Now) depicted his personal and public lives, including his relationship with his native Rio de Janeiro and its samba community. “The film depicts, both with enthusiasm and restraint, the life of a true prince,” wrote Brazilian journalist and critic José Nêummane in a review.
Paulinho Da Viola still lives in Rio de Janeiro and performs around Brazil.
Paulo Artur Mendes Pupo Nogueira known for Paulinho Nogueira, was born in Campinas, October 8, 1929 – died in São Paulo, August 2, 2003) was a composer musician, singer, guitarist and teacher.
Accomplished (talentoso) guitarist, was also a great composer of both instrumental songs (including famous outside Brazil, as their Bachianinhas), as music with lyrics. Was the inventor Craviola, and first teacher of Toquinho. His songs were recorded by such greats as: Jane Duboc, Jair Rodrigues, Yamandú Costa, Badi Assad, among many others.
He was an eclectic composer, his influences ranging from Bossa Nova to Bach. Since child very fond of music by Johann Sebastian Bach proved, taking it as an influence for the composition of one of his most famous songs, the Bachianinha.
Paulinho Nogueira created the craviola, a musical instrument similar to the acoustic guitar. He was the teacher of Toquinho
The Craviola is a stringed musical instrument designed by Paulinho Nogueira and built by manufacturer Giannini. Craviolas have a distinct asymmetric body shapecomparable to an acoustic guitar. Their timbre is a combination of sounds from a harpsichord and a viola caipira, hence the portmanteau (Cravo is the Portuguese word for harpsichord). Craviolas can be six-string or twelve-string (either nylon or steel) and are produced solely by Giannini.
Died in São Paulo on August 2, 2003.
17-Paulo Bitencourt
Paulo Roberto de Paula Bitencourt (Castro, Paraná, Brazil, December 20, 1966), better known as Paulo Bitencourt, is a razilian singer, photographer and narrator.
As a boy, Paulo Bitencourt dreamed of becoming a cartoonist. At the age of only thirteen, he worked as an illustrator at a newspaper and a large graphic arts and printing company in his hometown. However, in 1989, he went to Europe, having temporarily lived in Portugal, France, England and Germany, the following year arriving in Austria, where he settled.
In 1992, without any prior musical training, and competing with experienced young people from around the world, he passed the rigorous entrance examination for theFaculty of Solo Singing of the Conservatory of the City of Vienna, the same at which Joe Zawinul, for example, one of the greatest jazz figures, studied. Five years later, he passed the even more rigorous entrance examination for the Faculty of Opera, of the same Conservatory, graduating in 2000. In his final exam, he played Count Almaviva of the opera The Marriage of Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
As a soloist, Paulo Bitencourt gave recitals at the Schubert Hall of the Vienna Konzerthaus, singing works of Heitor Villa-Lobos, and at the Bösendorfer Hall, in Vienna, interpreting Villa-Lobos and Oscar Lorenzo Fernández.
In 1995, Paulo Bitencourt became part of the ensemble of the largest German-language theater, the Burgtheater, in Vienna, primarily as a singer, but in some plays also as an actor, like Die Dreigroschenoper by Bertolt Brecht, “Orpheus in the Underworld” by Jacques Offenbach, Ein Sportstück by Elfriede Jelinek, and Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare, this one under the direction of Declan Donnellan.
Self-taught on the guitar, dominates the instrument with absolute skill and is considered a leader in bossa nova guitar. In recent years Paulo Bitencourt has been interpreting the classics of bossa nova, specially compositions of Antonio Carlos Jobim and Chico Buarque.
18-Ricardo Silveira (Brazilian jazz).
Ricardo Silveira was born in Rio de Janeiro, where he was exposed to the varied musical styles of his native country. He found inspiration in bossa nova, samba, and carnival, as well as the music of Baden Powell. He loved Jimi Hendrix too. He left Brazil after high school to attend theBerklee College of Music (Boston). He used his training to move to New York City, where he began to play with Herbie Mann among others. He eventually made his way back to Brazil, becoming one of the most sought-after studio musicians in the country. He recorded hundreds of projects upon his return, working with some of the biggest names in Brazilian jazz. His most notable collaborations have been with Gilberto Gil and Milton Nascimento, since they have frequently requested his presence on their recordings. His solo recordings also became quite popular among fans of the Brazilian jazz scene.
19-Roberto Menescal
Roberto Menescal (born October 25, 1937) is a Brazilian guitarist/vocalist composer, producer. He was very important in the founding of bossa nova.
Menescal has performed in a variety of Latin music mediums, including Brazilian or brasileira pop-music, Bossa Nova and Samba.
The composer of bossa nova classics like “O Barquinho” and “Você,” among others.
Roberto Menescal started his professional career in 1957 as Sylvia Telles‘ sideman (on guitar) in a tour around Brazil. In 1958, he opened a guitar schoolin Copacabana (Rio) with Carlos Lyra, having as his pupils Nara Leão and his sister Danuza Leão. In the same year, he formed, with Luís Carlos Vinhas, João Mário, Henrique, and Bebeto, the Conjunto Roberto Menescal, one of the first instrumental groups of bossa nova.
Also in 1958, he participated, with Telles, Carlos Lyra, and other artists, in a show at the Clube Hebraica (Rio), when the words “bossa nova” were used (inadvertently, by the club’s secretary) for the first time to advertise the event. Later he took part with his group in the recording of Garotos da Bossa Nova in 1959, which was important vehicle for bossa nova among the middle-class university people who were more inclined to absorb and disseminate it. His “O Barquinho” (with Ronaldo Bôscoli), a bossa nova classic, was simultaneously recorded by Maysa, Perry Ribeiro, and Paulinho Nogueira in 1960.
In November 1962, he participated in the historic Bossa Nova Festival at Carnegie Hall in New York, NY, with Tom Jobim, Carlos Lyra, and others, interpreting “O Barquinho” in one of his few performances as a singer. In 1968, he accompanied Elis Regina in a European tour, having been Regina’s sideman until 1970. As a session man he worked with Lúcio Alves, Maysa, Claudette Soares, Nara Leão, Jair Rodrigues, and Elis Regina. He has also been participating in jazz projects, among others with Joe Henderson. In 2001, he participated with Wanda Sá, Danilo Caymmi, and Marcos Valle in the Fare Festival (Pavia, Italy).
He was nominated for a Latin Grammy for his work with his son’s bossa group Bossacucanova in 2002 and received also the “2013 Latin Recording Academy Special Awards” in Las Vegas.
20- Toquinho.
Antonio Pecci, known as Toquinho, son of the Italian descendents Diva Bondeolli Pecci and Antonio Pecci, was born in São Paulo. The origin of his nickname: he was very short during his childhood and her mother used to call him “meu toquinho de gente” (“my piece of person”). He was always the number one student in his class. He started playing guitar as a solution for physical and emotional problems. His first guitar classes were taught by Dona Aurora, a piano teacher who also knew how to play guitar. The songs he wanted to learn, like João Gilberto and Carlos Lyra, were too difficult for her. At 14 years old, he studied guitar with Paulinho Nogueira and went on studying harmony with Edgar Gianulo, classical guitar with Isaias Sávio and orchestration with Léo Peracchi. He also studied with guitarist and composer Oscar Castro-Neves. Toquinho’s professional career took off in the 1960s in São Paulo. He composed his first recorded song with Chico Buarque entitled “Lua Cheia” (Full Moon). His first big hit was composed in 1970 with Jorge Benjor, “Que Maravilha” (What a Wonder). That same year he was invited by Vinicius de Moraes, co-writer of the worldwide hit song “Garota de Ipanema” (The Girl from Ipanema), toparticipate in a series of shows in Buenos Aires, forming a solid partnership that would continue for 11 years and produce 120 songs, 25 records and over a thousand shows. After the death of Vinicius de Moraes in 1980, Toquinho went on to pursue a solo career, often performing with other talented musicians like Paulinho da Viola, Danilo Caymmi, Paulinho Nogueira and Chico Buarque. Throughout his career, Toquinho always composed for children, and has five albums for children, including Arca de Noé (1980), with Vinicius de Moraes, and Casa de brinquedos (1983). Toquinho continues to record albums and play his music around the world. He is still very acclaimed in Brazil and Italy.
21-Turibio Santos (soloist)
Turibio Soares Santos, better known as Turibio Santos, was born March 7, 1943. He is a Brazilian classical & bossa guitarist. He established himself with a wide repertoire of pieces by Heitor Villa-Lobos, Ernesto Nazareth, Francisco Mignone, and by accompanying musicians like Clara Sverner, Paulo Moura and Olivia Byington on many CDs.
At the age of 10 he was attracted to the classical guitar, his first teacher being Antonio Rebello and later Oscar Càceres. In 1962 he gave his first recital in Rio de Janeiro, followed by a series of concerts all over Brazil. In the following year the Villa-Lobos Museum invited him to play the Brazilian composer’s “Twelve Studies for Guitar” and “The Mystic Sextet”, given its first public hearing. 1964 marked the formation of a duo with Oscar Càceres and several tours of South America. Turibio Santos decided to establish himself in Europe in 1965, in which year he won the first prize in the O.R.T.F.’s International Guitar Competition in Paris.
His appearances in programmes on the ORTF and the BBC as well as his world première recording on disc of Heitor Villa-Lobos’s “Twelve Studies” have made him known to the European public.
Many orchestras have welcomed him as a soloist, such as the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the English Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1974 he joined Yehudi Menuhin and Mstislav Rostropovich in the opening Concert for the Creation of International Funds for Musical Collaboration organised by UNESCO.
Turibio Santos has been professor of classical guitar at UFRJ School of Music and thedirector of the Museu Villa-Lobos in Rio de Janeiro for 24 years.
22-Vinicius Cantuária (pioneer of neo-Brazilian music)
Vinicius Cantuária was born in the Amazonian city of Manaus, Cantuária, on April 29,1951.He is a Brazilian singer, songwriter, guitarist, drummer and percussionist. He is associated with Bossa nova and Brazilian jazz. He grew up in Rio and relocated to New York City in the mid-1990s. His career spans several zones of Brazilian music:he founded the Brazilian rock group O Terço in the 1970s. He pioneered the world of neo-Brazilian music with his first international release Sol Na Cara in 1996. Since moving to the United States, Cantuária has been a leading figure in the downtown New York Jazz and contemporary music scenes. His albums have featured collaborations with Arto Lindsay, Bill Frisell,Brian Eno, Laurie Anderson, Brad Mehldau, Marc Ribot, David Byrne and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
In 1998, Cantuária contributed the song “Luz de Candeiro” to the AIDS benefit compilation album Onda Sonora: Red Hot + Lisbon produced by the Red Hot Organization.
Cantuária also produces various other artists, such as the successful debut album of Aline de Lima in 2006, also from the French Naïve label, which released hisCymbals album.
23-Vinicius de Moraes (O Poetinha), another great music with alcohol addiction.
Marcus Vinicius da Cruz e Mello Moraes, better known as Vinícius de Moraes or by his nickname O Poetinha (the little poet), was born in the neighborhood of Gávea, then a rural suburb of Rio de Janeiro, on October 19, 1913. Son of Lydia Cruz de Moraes (amateur pianist) and Clodoaldo Pereira da Silva Moraes (a City Hall officer & amateur guitarist), he was a seminal figure in contemporary Brazilian music. He was also a composer of bossa nova. In 1916, he moved with his family to various addresses at the downtown quarter of Botafogo, where he attended classes at Afrânio Peixoto Primary School. Vinícius was to get in touch with various musicians, among them the composer Bororó. From 1924 Vinícius attended high school at the traditional Jesuit-sponsored St. Ignatius School, where he sang in the congregation choir. Three years later, he became friends with the brothers Paulo and Haroldo Tapajós, with whom he assembled his first musical compositions, which were performed at friends’ parties.
In 1929 he was admitted to the Faculty of Law at the University of Rio de Janeiro – nowadays the Law School of the Rio de Janeiro State University (UERJ). Vinícius de Moraes received his B.A. degree in Legal and Social Sciences in 1933. In this School he met to Octavio Faria who had an attempted suicide because of his unrequited love for Vinicius. In 1938 Moraes won a British Council fellowship to study English language and literature at Oxford University. Vinicius was acknowledged later as one of the most prominent members of the “generation of ’45” – the name given to various Brazilian modernist writers. At the death of his father in 1950, Vinícius de Moraes returned briefly to Brazil. Later returned to diplomatic duties in France and Uruguay, In 1953 he went to Paris as second secretary at the Brazilian embassy in France, Vinícius was to release his first samba, composed jointly with musician Antônio Maria: Quando tu passas por mim (“When You Pass By”). In 1956 he became a well-known playwright with the staging of his musical play Orfeu da Conceição. His play Orfeu da Conceição, a reworking of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice set in the carnival in Rio, was itself adapted into the film Black Orpheus, which won an Academy Award in 1959 as the Best Foreign Language Film (France; director, Marcel Camus). It was also awarded the Palme d’Or at the Cannes International Film Festival and the 1960 British Academy Award.
Was in 1956, during the production of his play, Vinícius met to a relatively unknown pianist, Antônio Carlos Jobim, who was commissioned with writing the music for the play. Jobim composed the music for Se Todos Fossem Iguais a Você and several other songs included in the production. At the end of 1956, Vinícius returned to France, being transferred in 1957 from the Brazilian Embassy to the Brazilian representation at UNESCO. In 1958 he would be transferred to the Brazilian embassy in Montevideo, returning to Brazil in transit. In 1958, the singer Elizete Cardoso released her album Canção do Amor Demais, marking the beginning of bossa nova. This record consists wholly of compositions by the Jobim-Vinícius partnership, or by either of the two (Canção do Amor Demais, Luciana, Estrada Branca, Chega de Saudade, Outra Vez…). The recording also featured a relatively unknown João Gilberto on two tracks. With the release of this record, Vinícius’s career in music (as well as that of many involved with him) may be said to have truly begun. The songs of Jobim and Vinícius were recorded by numerous Brazilian singers and performers of that time. Renditions of many Jobim-Vinícius’s numbers on João Gilberto‘s first, second and third albums would firmly establish the sound and the core repertory of the bossa nova and would influence a new generation of singers and songwriters especially in Rio de Janeiro. Among his songs with Jobim are all time hits such as Garota de Ipanema, Insensatez and Chega de Saudade. In August 1962, Vinícius would for the first time perform publicly as singer and entertainer – together with Jobim and Gilberto – at the Rio nightclub Au Bon Gourmet. This was to be the first of hispocket-shows, i.e., performances made to small audiences
In the 1960s and 1970s, Vinicius continued collaborating with many renowned Brazilian singers and musicians, particularly Baden Powell, with whom he penned a series of songs with a heavy Afro-Brazilian influence and which came to be known collectively as the Afro-Sambas. Notable also was his collaboration with Edu Lobo on the Elis Regina hit song “Arrastão”.
As a known bohemian was spied by political police and branded as a “rabble” (marginal) and a drunk. Eventually, during a purge in the Ministry of Foreign Relations, he was forcibly retired in 1969, at age 55. His alcoholism was public knowledge. In the 1970s, already established and with a new partner, the guitarist and singer Antônio Pecci Filho, nicknamed Toquinho, his most stable partner , Vinícius worked in tandem on both musical and literary productions, putting forth various albums and books of great commercial success. He also toured through Europe with Chico Buarque, the singer-songwriter son of the historian, and Nara Leão, and Argentina with Toquinho, Dorival Caymmi and Oscar Castro-Neves.
Vinicius once said that O uísque é o melhor amigo do homem—é o cão engarrafado, “Whisky is man’s best friend, the dog in a bottle”. After a long spell of poor health punctuated by various stints in rehab clinics, Vinícius de Moraes died at his home in Rio de Janeiro on July 9, 1980 at the age of 66, in the company of his eighth and last wife, Gilda de Queirós Mattoso, and the ever-faithful (siempre fiel) Toquinho. He is buried in Rio de Janeiro’s Cemitério São João Batista. In 2006, Vinícius was officially reintegrated to the Brazilian diplomatic corps. In February 2010, the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies approved his post-mortem promotion to the post of Ambassador (First Class Minister).