Byrd’s fascination with Bossa Nova led him to the album Jazz Samba, which was recorded in 1962 for Verve Records with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz, including a successful version of Desafinado. The album spent 70 weeks at American pop charts and led producer Creed Taylor to invite Bossa Nova architects – including Gilberto and Jobim – to a concert in New York on November 21, 1962, on the famous Carnegie Hall album. A live album, In Tokyo, followed by Verve in 2003, but this is the last thing the world knew about João Gilberto, who recently became a recluse and experienced a sharp deterioration in his health and permanent financial difficulties. João Gilberto became internationally known in the early 1960s as one of the leading architects of the popular Bossa Nova style in Brazil. After overcoming this obstacle, Gilberto returned to Rio de Janeiro in 1956 and found a soulmate in the pianist and former pupil of classical architecture, Antonio Carlos Jobim. Many people were involved in Bossa Nova, but João Gilberto appeared as Luz, a big star in the sky. The late Claus Ogerman, author of the orchestral arrangements for Gilberto’s album Amoroso, remembers that he considered the Brazilian musician to be a taciturn and very withdrawn musician when he works together. Bossa Nova quickly spread to the United States, first thanks to enthusiastic American jazz musicians like Herbie Mann and Charlie Byrd, who ventured into Brazil and were fascinated by the new sounds that were heard t. Although a critical success in Brazil, Gilberto’s first album did not please everyone – when the album was sent from Rio to São Paulo for distribution, an angry Odeon manager said, “Look what piece of s****** Rio sent us” and destroyed the album in protest. In 2000, at the age of 69, he recorded his most recent studio album João Voz e Violão, an intimate recital of voice and guitar on the Grammy, nominated by Universal label. It wasn’t until 1973, when Polydor João Gilberto released the album, that he recorded a new one.
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