João Donato (1934-2023)

João Donato, one of Brazil's original bossa nova pianist-composers who stood out among a sea of extraordinarily talented peers by integrating jazz and Latin chord voicings and rhythms into his playing style, died on July 17. He was 88.

Donato's contemporaries included Brazilian musician-composers Johnny Alf, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Carlos Lyra, Roberto Menescal, João Gilberto, Eumir Deodato and others who softened the samba with a West Coast jazz feel. Born and raised initially in Rio Branco, in western Brazil near Peru—about 2,000 flying miles from Rio de Janiero on the country's east coast—Donato played accordion at age 5 and began writing songs at age 7. At 11, he arrived in Rio de Janeiro by boat with his family after his father, a major in the military police, relocated.

Eager to become a pilot, like his father, who had taken him on flying trips over the Amazon, Donato took the test at 18 and failed. He was colorblind. Music became a default occupation. Befriending Jobim in the early 1950s, Donato began recording as a sideman. He also formed a vocal harmony group, Os Namorados, with members of Lucio Alves’s Os Namorados da Lua.

By the late 1950s, many of the young musician-composers and singers who knew each other began creating the softer bossa nova while playing in hotel lounges and small clubs along Rio's Copacabana Beach. Initially, their music wasn't popular, largely because people couldn't figure out how to dance to it. But after the popularity of Elizete Cardoso.'s Canção do Amor Demais (1958) and then Gilberto's Chega de Saudade (1959), the bossa nova became the music of the sophisticated youth culture emerging in Rio and São Paulo.

Donato was't content being locked into a sound or category. Animated by West Coast jazz, he left Brazil in 1959 for Los Angeles to play at a resort in Lake Tahoe, Nev. The club had sent him a one-way ticket. As he told Russ Slater at the Sounds and Colours blog in 2021:

I stayed for 12 years. I got involved and got married. I had a daughter. I started leading my life in the United States. I felt like an American for some time. I was driving my car in L.A. and I said, “Oh yes, this is my country.” I have a very good appreciation for the American people because they are the jazz ones. They’re the guys who turned me on to the Stan Kenton Orchestra. When I first heard Stan Kenton on a 78 record, I said, “What is this? My goodness!” I couldn’t sleep that night. I love that Kenton sound. And then I fell in love with the USA because of Stan Kenton and then the other guys,

Donato went on to play trombone and piano with Eddie Palmieri and Mongo Santamaria but did the bulk of his recording in Brazil and always with a cast of legends. Among his most internationally popular hits were Minha Saudade, written with Gilberto, A Rã (The Frog) and Caranguejo (The Crab).

Influenced by a wide assortment of music styles and genres, Donato was one of the most eclectic and innovative artists to emerge from the Brazilian musical renaissance at the start of the 1960s. His finest album remains A Bad Donato (1970), which features a stew of styles all brought together with his keen sense of drama and pop. But the word “finest" with Donato is almost ridiculous. All of his albums offer enormous excitement and flair. Whenever Donato touched the keyboard, beauty, rhythm and passion flowed.

Here are 10 favorites:

Here's Donato's first album as a leader—A Bossa Muito Moderna de Donato e Seu Trio (1963). Dig the fusion of bossa and Latin...



Here's his second album, The New Sound of Brazil (1965), arranged by Claus Ogerman...



Here's one of my favorite Donato albums, Bud Shank and His Brazilian Friends (1965), with Bud (as), Donato (p), Rosinha de Valença (g), Sebastião Neto (b) and Chico Batera (d)...



Here's the full A Bad Donato (1970)...



Here's the full Quem É Quem (1973)...



Here's the full Donato e Deodato (1973)...



Here's Emilio Santiago Encontra João Donatom (2003)...



Here's Donato Elétrico (2016)...



Here's the full Sambolero, as it was recorded in the studio in 2005. The album won the Latin Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album...



And here's Donato with singer, songwriter, arranger and keyboardist Marcos Valle and his wife, singer Patricia Alvi...



Bonus: Here's Donato and Zeca Pagodinho singing Donato's Sambou Sambou...