Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim (25 January 1927 – 8 December 1994), also known asTom Jobim (Portuguese pronunciation:[tõʒoˈbĩ]ⓘ), was a Brazilian composer, pianist, guitarist, songwriter, arranger and singer, and is considered one of the great exponents of Brazilian music. Jobim mergedsamba withcool jazz in the 1960s to createbossa nova, with worldwide success; as a result, he is regarded as one of the fathers of bossa nova, and as one of the most celebrated songwriters of the 20th century.[1] His songs have been performed by many singers and instrumentalists internationally since the early 1960s.
Antônio Carlos Jobim was born at 23:15 BRT on 25 January 1927 in the middle-class district ofTijuca inRio de Janeiro. His father, Jorge de Oliveira Jobim (São Gabriel, Rio Grande do Sul; 1889–1935), was a writer, diplomat, professor and journalist. He came from a prominent family, being the great-nephew ofJosé Martins da Cruz Jobim [pt],[4]senator,privy councillor and physician of EmperorDom Pedro II. While studying medicine in Europe, José Martins addedJobim to his last name, paying homage to the village where his family came from in Portugal, the parish ofSanta Cruz de Jovim,Porto.[5][6] Antônio's mother, Nilza Brasileiro de Almeida (c. 1910–1989), was of partly indigenous descent from northeastern Brazil.[7] Brasileiro de Almeida was only 16 years old when she gave birth to Antônio Carlos Jobim at their home in Tijuca on Rua Conde de Bonfim.[8]
When Antônio was still an infant, his parents separated and his mother moved with her children (Antônio Carlos and his sister Helena Isaura, born 23 February 1931) toIpanema, the beachside neighborhood the composer would later celebrate in his songs. In 1935, when the elder Jobim died, Nilza married Celso da Frota Pessoa (died 2 February 1979), who would encourage his stepson's career; it was he who gave Jobim his first piano. Jobim credits his stepfather with encouraging him to pursue music. In an interview withRoberto d'Ávila in 1981, he said, "I hated the piano, I thought it was a girly thing, I liked to play soccer...I had a great stepfather who really helped me get involved with music and convinced me that the piano was not a girly thing."[8] As a young man of limited means, Jobim earned his living by playing in nightclubs and bars and later as an arranger for a recording label before starting to achieve success as a composer.
Later on in the interview with Roberto d'Ávila, Jobim talks about his feelings toward his upbringing. He notes a conversation he had with a friend of his father's,Erico Verissimo, where Verissimo said that Tom Jobim should be sombre due to the absence of his father from a young age. Jobim told d'Ávila, "I was left without a father, clinging to my mother's skirts…some [men] have 'excessive' fathers, the excessive presence of their fathers is a problem, but the absence of a father is also a problem."[8] Jobim continued with d'Ávila, sharing that it takes something of great influence to bring someone to dedicate their life to music. He said that "people who play the piano well are all handicapped". He mentions the health struggles of bothSergio Mendes who hadosteomyelitis andLuiz Eça who hadpolio. "It takes something really strong to make you leave reality behind and begin to write songs," Jobim shared. With d'Ávila he alludes to his sadness as a young man as being the driving force that motivated him to further his pursuit in music, that he needed to be sad in order to play the piano and write. He concludes on the topic with d'Ávila that, at that point in his life (the interview having taken place in 1981) that he no longer needed to be sad to create music, that he was no longer sad as he was at the beginning of his career.[8]
Jobim's musical roots were planted firmly in the work ofPixinguinha, the legendary musician and composer who began modern Brazilian music in the 1930s. Among his teachers were Lúcia Branco and, from 1941 on,Hans-Joachim Koellreutter, a German composer who lived in Brazil and introducedatonal andtwelve-tone composition in the country. Jobim's mother established a school where Jobim would begin taking lessons on the piano; this is when he would meet Koellreutter.[8] Jobim was also influenced by the French composersClaude Debussy andMaurice Ravel, and by the Brazilian composersAry Barroso who has been described as Jobim's "most important musical influence".[9] Among many themes, his lyrics talked about love, self-discovery, betrayal, joy and especially about the birds and natural wonders of Brazil, like the "Mata Atlântica" forest, characters of Brazilian folklore and his home city ofRio de Janeiro. In a segment with theNBCToday show in 1986, hosted byJane Pauley, Jobim spoke about his music's origins of inspiration, saying "My music comes from this environment here, you know, the rain, the sun, the trees, the birds, the fish."[10]
Jobim (left) and de Moraes (right) in 1962. The two wrote many successful songs together, including the music forOrfeu da Conceição andThe Girl from Ipanema.
In the 1940s Jobim started to play piano in bars and nightclubs of Rio de Janeiro, and in the first years of the 1950s he worked as an arranger in the Continental Studio, where in April 1953 he had his first composition recorded, when the Brazilian singer Mauricy Moura recorded Jobim's composition "Incerteza", with lyrics byNewton Mendonça.[11][12]
Jobim became prominent in Brazil when he teamed up with poet and diplomatVinicius de Moraes to write the music for the playOrfeu da Conceição (1956). The most popular song from the show was "Se Todos Fossem Iguais A Você" ("If Everyone Were Like You"). Later, when the play was adapted into a film, producerSacha Gordine did not want to use any of the existing music from the play. Gordine asked de Moraes and Jobim for a new score for the filmOrfeu Negro, orBlack Orpheus (1959). Moraes was at the time away inMontevideo, Uruguay, working for the Itamaraty (theBrazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and so he and Jobim were only able to write three songs, primarily over the telephone ("A felicidade", "Frevo" and "O nosso amor"). This collaboration proved successful, and de Moraes went on to pen the lyrics to some of Jobim's most popular songs.
In 1958 the Brazilian singer and guitaristJoão Gilberto recorded his first album with two of Jobim's most famous songs, "Desafinado" and "Chega de Saudade". This album inaugurated the Bossa Nova movement in Brazil. The sophisticated harmonies of his songs caught the attention of jazz musicians in the United States, principally after his first performance atCarnegie Hall, in 1962.[13]
In talking about his creative process when writing and creating "Girl From Ipanema", Jobim toldRoberto d’Ávila in 1981, "It comes to me in a way, then it changes one or two times and all of the sudden, it becomes something that makes sense…it's like the profile of a woman…the profile of a woman, something very discernible, then you say: ‘hey, this is really beautiful…’ then you stare and as soon as you stare, it's gone, I mean it becomes part of the past." Jobim continues, "I mean, every time you draw something it turns into, it's something static… that portrait remains forever."[8]
Jobim andElis Regina first met in 1974 in Los Angeles, when Regina was only 29 years old and still a fresh face in the Brazilian music industry. Regina was a force to be reckoned with, being referred to asfuracão ("hurricane" in English) by those who worked with and around her. The two artists came together to create the albumElis & Tom which would unexpectedly become tremendously popular in the United States as well as across the globe. Regina and Jobim had a special creative chemistry between them that was noted by those who were present to witness the collaborative process first hand during that era in both of their careers.Oscar Castro-Neves, a guitarist-producer who worked with Regina and Jobim on theElis & Tom album in the mid-1970s, recalled in an article with theLos Angeles Times that "There was a very fine line between ‘rehearsal’ and ‘hanging out,’ ‘just talking’...it was all that seamless."[15] Due to the nature of their work relationship, Regina and Jobim grew close and had a symbiosis that is reflected in the result of their work together. "Aguas de março" represents this, with the lyrics simulating a banter of finishing each other's sentences.
Jobim was married to Thereza Otero Hermanny on 15 October 1949 and had two children with her:Paulo Jobim (1950–2022), an architect and musician and father ofDaniel Jobim (born 1973) and Dora Jobim (born 1976); and Elizabeth "Beth" Jobim (born 1957), a painter. Jobim and Thereza divorced in 1978. On 30 April 1986, he married 29-year-old photographer Ana Beatriz Lontra, with whom he had two more children: João Francisco Jobim (1979–1998) and Maria Luiza Helena Jobim (born 1987). Daniel, Paulo's son, followed his grandfather to become a pianist and composer,[16] and performed "The Girl from Ipanema" during theopening ceremony of the2016 Summer Olympics inRio de Janeiro.[17]
In early 1994, after finishing his albumAntonio Brasileiro, Jobim complained to his doctor, Roberto Hugo Costa Lima, of urinary problems. Jobim was diagnosed withbladder cancer and underwent treatment, although he postponed surgery.[18] He underwent an operation atMount Sinai Hospital in New York City on 2 December 1994. At 7:00 EST on 8 December, while recovering from surgery, he had acardiac arrest caused by apulmonary embolism, and two hours later, another cardiac arrest, from which he died.[19][20][21][22] He was survived by his children and grandchildren. His last album,Antonio Brasileiro, was released posthumously, just days after his death.
Jobim was an innovator in the use of sophisticated harmonic structures in popular song. Some of his melodic twists included the melody insisting on the major seventh of the chord.[24]
He won aLifetime Achievement Award at the54th Grammy Awards in 2012.[27] As a posthumous homage, on 5 January 1999, the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro changed the name of Rio'sGaleão International Airport, located onGovernador Island, to bear the composer's name. Galeão Airport is explicitly mentioned in his composition "Samba do Avião". In 2014, Jobim was posthumously inducted to theLatin Songwriters Hall of Fame.[28] In 2015,Billboard named Jobim as one of The 30 Most Influential Latin Artists of All Time.[29]He was nominated for five Grammy Awards, including Best New Artist at the 7th Grammy Awards, where he lost to the Beatles. He won Best Latin Jazz Performance for the album titled Antonio Brasileiro at the 38th Annual Grammy Awards.
American contemporary jazz singerMichael Franks dedicated his 1995 albumAbandoned Garden to the memory of Jobim.[30] English singer/songwriterGeorge Michael frequently acknowledged Jobim's influence. His 1996 albumOlder was dedicated to Jobim,[31] and he recorded "Desafinado" onRed Hot + Rio (1996) with Astrud Gilberto.
Following a public vote, the official mascot of the2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro,Tom, was named after him.[32]
^CORADINI, O. L.:Important families and the professional elite within brazilian medicine. História, Ciências, Saúde—Manguinhos, III (3) 425–466, November 1996 – February 1997.Online .pdfArchived 5 June 2011 at theWayback Machine
^SILVA, Innocêncio Francisco da:Diccionario Bibliographico Portuguez: Applicaveis a Portugal e ao Brasil, Lisboa 1860, p. 62
^Cabral, Sergio (1987).Tom Jobim. The Archive of Contemporary Music. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: CBPO.ISBN9788585144012.
^"Rio 2016 Paralympic mascot named 'Tom'".Official Website of the Paralympic Movement. International Paralympic Committee. 15 December 2014.Archived from the original on 18 August 2016. Retrieved8 August 2016.
^"Jobim".Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.IAU/NASA/USGS.Archived from the original on 22 May 2022. Retrieved20 September 2022.
De Stefano, Gildo,SaudadeBossa Nova: musiche, contaminazioni e ritmi del Brasile, preface by Chico Buarque, introduction by Gianni Minà, Logisma Editore, Florence 2017,ISBN978-88-97530-88-6
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