Carlos Lyra (1933-2023)

Carlos Lyra, a Brazilian singer-songwriter and guitarist, and one of the fathers of the bossa nova who, with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes, Luiz Bonfá, Roberto Menescal and Ronaldo Bôscoli, among others, turned a new form of middle-class aspirational music into a global sensation, died in Rio de Janeiro on December 16. He was 90.

In the same league as Jobim in terms of poetic lyricism and musical beauty, Lyra composed dozens of aching bossa-nova love songs that have since become international standards. These include Você e Eu, Saudade Fez um Samba, Clume, Menina, Se e Tarde Me Perdoa, Aruanda, Coisa Mais Linda, Influência do Jazz and Lobo Bobo.

Lyra was among a handful of musicians in the late 1950s who performed a new, more intimate and hushed form of samba for tourists in Rio hotel lounges and small clubs. In 1957, one of these bossa nova groups included Lyra, singer Sylvia Telles and others who played at the Hebraic Club in the Flamengo district of Rio.

Lyra was so influential as a songwriter in Rio that three of his songs were covered by singer-guitarist João Gilberto on his seminal album Chega De Saudade. The 1959 LP popularized the bossa nova and helped attract American and French musicians and record producers who exploited and promoted the style, leading to a worldwide craze.

During my interview with Lyra in 2015, he told me about the bossa nova's start and Johnny Alf's influence:

At the same time our group was getting together, other groups were also doing the same thing. We became aware of each other at gatherings on the beach at night. There was no one single place where the bossa nova happened. I met João Gilberto for the first time at Rio's Plaza Hotel, in the Copacabana district, in the hotel's Boite Plaza piano bar.

Sylvia [Telles] was one of the very first to record bossa nova. She also was a very liberated woman for her times. There were no real bossa nova clubs in the mid-1950s, but she was at the Boite Plaza piano bar in the Plaza Hotel almost every night. The big attraction was pianist-songwriter Johnny Alf, one of the precursors of bossa nova.

In tribute to the late Carlos Lyra, let's listen to 10 of my favorite clips:

Here's the full 1959 album Carlos Lyra: Bossa Nova, which wasn't originally released in the U.S... .



Here's Gilberto's 1959 recording of Lyra's Saudade Fez um Samba...



Here's Carlos Lyra's Influência do Jazz in 1963...



Here's Flora Purim singing Carlos Lyra and Vinicius De Moraes' Samba do Carioca in 1964...



Here's Se é Tarde Me Perdoa from Carlos Lyra and Paul Winter's The Sound of Ipanema (1965), with Lyra on guitar and vocal, and Winter on alto saxophone...



Here's Carlos Lyra's 1969 cover of Samba De La Bendicion Saravá, from the movie A Man a Woman...



Here's Carlos Lyra in 1989 in Japan singing Maria Ninguem. Dig his chords!...



Here's Até O Fim, with Carlos Lyra (music), Marcos Valle (lyrics), João Donato and Roberto Menescal in 2011...



Here's Carlos Lyra and his daughter, Kay, in 2011 singing his Você e Eu and Coisa Mais Linda...



Here's Lyra singing Belle Époque from his final album, Além da Bossa, released in 2019...



Bonus: Here's an hour-long Carlos Lyra compilation...



And here's Tony Bennett singing Antonio Carlos Jobim's Song of the Jet (Samba do Avião) (1965), with Carlos Lyra on guitar...