At one point in his career, in the late 1960’s, Antônio Carlos Brasileiro Jobim (known universally as Tom Jobim) was the second most recorded artist in the world, second only to the Beatles. “But take note that there are four of them in English and only one of me in Portuguese!” he would joke. He was then, and still is, even twenty years after his death, arguably Brazil’s greatest popular composer.

Think of Rio de Janeiro, the view of the Christ statue in the distance, the bay of Copacabana, the beautiful women walking on the beach, their skin glistening under the sun. If you can feel the breeze of the ocean, you can hear the bossa nova beat that Tom Jobim and his contemporaries helped export to the world. Though somewhat out of fashion now, this genre—started in the late 1950s—helped influence jazz and pop music, and (unfortunately) became synonymous with muzak. You have certainly heard it in some office-building elevator. You might even know it as “Brazilian lounge music.”

This sophisticated style introduced a completely new way of playing the classical guitar and managed to be a pop fusion of African-inspired styles like samba with contemporary influences such as American experimentations in jazz. Musicians and lyricists leading the movement were at the very top of their game, and Jobim himself was referred to as the maestro. READ MORE…