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Brazil, Bossa Nova, and Jobim
With all eyes on Brazil as of late, it seems only fitting to celebrate the Brazilian artists that have made contributions to the musical world. One such artist is Antonio Carlos Jobim, whose innovations triggered the musical phenomenon of bossa nova internationally. Below is a more informative look at the Hal Leonard Book Antonio Carlos Jobim: An Illuminated Man.
“[Tom Jobim] is the great Brazilian artist. He’s our Borges, our Picasso, our Beethoven.”
– Veja magazine, São Paolo, Brazil
Antonio Carlos (“Tom”) Jobim is known as the king of the bossa nova. His unforgettable songs have been covered by everyone from Ella Fitzgerald to Herbie Hancock and Carlos Santana, but perhaps never so memorably as by Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, who introduced the world to Jobim’s global smash “The Girl from Ipanema.”
Since then the sway and appeal of the bossa nova has been a major influence on jazz, pop, and world music, and at its very heart is Jobim. In Antonio Carlos Jobim: An Illuminated Man, his personal, intellectual, and professional history comes alive in elegant and melodic prose from his sister Helena, a poet and novelist of great range and power. Accompanied by dozens of revealing photos, this book is a surprisingly intimate portrait of one of Latin America’s most widely celebrated musicians. Here we see Jobim not only as an outstanding creative artist who regularly worked with stars such as Frank Sinatra; we see him also a man devoted to his family and as an environmentalist deeply concerned about the state of the natural world, in his beloved Brazil and beyond.
The composer of hundreds of songs of inexplicable grace, Jobim recreated the world he lived in not only through mesmerizing music but also through down-to-earth poetry. In Antonio Carlos Jobim: An Illuminated Man, Helena Jobim brings new life to her brother’s vision and voice. It is the story of a true twentieth-century genius