RIO DE JANEIRO -- When talk turns to musical invasions, thoughts naturally turn to the British, but before the British there were the Brazilians.
Brazilian composer-arranger Antonio Carlos Jobim -- who died yesterday in New York at 67 -- was perhaps the most important figure in the creation of bossa nova. With guitarist Joao Gilberto and lyricist Vinicius de Moraes, "Tom" Jobim took the traditional sambas of Brazil, "added swing" and created an amazing body of pop and jazz standards.
But if Jobim's music has become part of the American musical vocabulary, its impact in the United States is nothing compared to its importance in Brazil, where his songs regularly turn up on the albums of local artists young and old, and his influence has been crucial to such stars as Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque and Gilberto Gil.
His music was a distinctly Brazilian art form, and he never let people forget it. "Bossa nova is not Brazilian jazz," he said in one of his last interviews in Rio de Janeiro. Created in the late 1950s, bossa nova captured a new spirit of optimism in Brazil. (The name itself meant "new flair" in Portuguese.) The fast-growing country was moving its capital from Rio to a brand-new city, Brasilia. The future was being made, and with the move came a flowering of modernist architecture, music, painting and arts that remains a watershed in Brazilian history.
Jobim's music was already a hit in Brazil when tenor saxophonist Stan Getz and guitarist Charlie Byrd took it to the United States. The 1962 Getz-Byrd record "Jazz Samba" -- recorded in Washington's All Souls Unitarian Church -- was on the Billboard charts for 70 weeks, eventually reaching No. 1. The 1964 follow-up, "Getz/Gilberto," featured Jobim on piano. That album's hit single, "The Girl From Ipanema," won four Grammy awards. Jazz critic Neil Tesser has called it the "Thriller" of its time, comparing it to Michael Jackson's biggest success.
One of Jobim's last musical acts, however, was as a singer: He performs the Bart Howard classic "Fly Me to the Moon" with Frank Sinatra on the latest Sinatra release, "Duets II."
Since the arrival of bossa nova, such Jobim classics as "Desafinado," "Quiet Nights and Quiet Stars," "Waters of March," "One Note Samba" and the omnipresent "Girl From Ipanema" have been recorded by the likes of Sarah Vaughan, Nat King Cole, Barbra Striesand, Dionne Warwick, Herbie Hancock and Ella Fitzgerald.
Lately, a new generation of stars has discovered him. Jobim's latest Brazilian release includes British pop star Sting performing "How Insensitive."
Admirers expressed shock at his death, which came suddenly as he was recuperating from minor heart surgery at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York. In a statement released from his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., Sinatra said, "The world has lost one of its most talented and innovative musicians." Sting, reached in London, called Jobim "a giant of Brazilian music," adding that "the world will miss him as a great, great artist."
Warwick, on tour in Belgium, said she had just bought a house near Jobim's in Rio de Janeiro's lush Botanical Garden neighborhood and had been hoping to work again with him after she moves to Brazil next year. Her most recent album, "Aquarella do Prazer," includes a medley of Jobim hits.
"He wrote some of the prettiest music I ever heard," she said. "He had the special gift of being able to mix all forms of music. I had trouble singing some intervals in his music until I realized that they go all the way back to Bach and Beethoven. We will miss him in the physical form but his music will live forever."
His body is expected to arrive in Brazil from New York for burial today. The governor of Rio de Janeiro has declared three days of official mourning and flags will fly at half-staff.
Warwick sees a revival coming for Jobim's music. "People want to touch each other again," she said. "They want to say beautiful things to each other."
And if that happens, expect some love to bloom. It is hard to imagine people listening again to the gentle sway of the rhythm and the nearly whispered lyrics without a little romance springing.
The time may return when you can blame it on the bossa nova.
CAPTION: Antonio Carlos Jobim: Bossa nova's master is gone but his insinuating rhythms linger on.
