安东尼奥·卡洛斯·若宾

Antônio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida Jobim (25 January 1927 – 8 December 1994), also known as Tom Jobim (Portuguese pronunciation: [tõ ʒoˈbĩ] ), was a Brazilian composer, pianist, guitarist, songwriter, arranger and singer. Jobim is considered a great exponent of Brazilian music and one of the fathers of bossa nova for having merged samba with cool jazz in the 1960s as a pioneer of the genre. He is also regarded as one of the most celebrated songwriters of the 20th century, and his compositions have been played and recorded by many singers and instrumentalists internationally since the early 1960s.

Jobim is best known for his composition "Garota de Ipanema (The Girl from Ipanema)", which has been recorded over 240 times by other artists, and is believed to be one of the most recorded popular songs in history. Along with "Garota de Ipanema", many of Jobim's compositions are included in jazz and pop standard repertoires. Several of these compositions are featured on the 1964 album Getz/Gilberto, which won the Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Instrumental Album – Individual or Group, Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, and was the first jazz record to win Album of the Year. The recording of "Garota de Ipanema" that features on this album also won Record of the Year when released as a single. His 1967 album with Frank Sinatra, Francis Albert Sinatra & Antônio Carlos Jobim, was nominated for Album of the Year in 1968 and album Antônio Brasileiro was awarded the 1995 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album.

Early life

Antônio Carlos Jobim was born at 23:15 BRT on 25 January 1927 in the middle-class district of Tijuca in Rio 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 of José Martins da Cruz Jobim, senator, privy councillor and physician of Emperor Dom Pedro II. While studying medicine in Europe, José Martins added Jobim to his last name, paying homage to the village where his family came from in Portugal, the parish of Santa Cruz de Jovim, Porto. Antônio's mother, Nilza Brasileiro de Almeida (c. 1910–1989), was of partly indigenous descent from northeastern Brazil. 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.

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) to Ipanema, 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; he gave Jobim his first piano. Jobim credits his stepfather with encouraging him to pursue music. In an interview with Roberto 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." 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.