The Composer of Desafinado, Plays by Antonio Carlos Jobim

The Composer of Desafinado, Plays was Antonio Carlos Jobim's first album, cut for Verve with Creed Taylor producing and released in 1963, and it's the sound of bossa nova's chief architect stepping out from behind his songbook to play it himself. Samba sway meets cool-jazz hush across twelve instrumentals, nearly all of them tunes that went on to become jazz standards, and the set opens with "The Girl from Ipanema". Claus Ogerman wrote the arrangements, the start of a musical partnership that lasted the rest of Jobim's life, and his charts leave the melodies all the room they need.

Jobim plays both guitar and piano, though the producers fought him over the piano: they wanted the Latin lover with his guitar, and that's exactly what the cover sells. He was still telling the story on NPR's Fresh Air in 1988. The record entered the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001, and in 2007 Rolling Stone Brasil placed it at 58 on its list of the 100 greatest Brazilian records.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.