Laurindo Almeida born 2 September 1917

Laurindo Almeida (September 2, 1917 – July 26, 1995) was a Brazilian virtuoso guitarist and composer who made many recordings of enduring impact in classical, jazz and Latin genres. He is widely credited, with fellow artist Bud Shank, for creating the fusion of Latin and jazz which came to be known as the bossa nova. Almeida was the first artist to receive Grammy Awards for both classical and jazz performances. His discography encompasses more than a hundred recordings over five decades.

Laurindo Jose de Araujo Almeida Nobrega Neto was born in the village of Prainha, Brazil near Santos in the state of São Paulo. Born into a musical family, Almeida was a self-taught guitarist. During his teenage years, Almeida moved to São Paulo, where he worked as a radio artist, staff arranger and nightclub performer. At the age of 19, he worked his way to Europe playing guitar in a cruise ship orchestra. In Paris, he attended a performance at the Hot Club by Stephane Grappelli and famed guitarist Django Reinhardt, who became a lifelong artistic inspiration.

Returning to Brazil, Almeida continued composing and performing. He became known for playing both classical Spanish and popular guitar. He moved to the United States in 1947; a trip financed when one of his compositions, a song known as "Johnny Peddler" became a hit recorded by the Andrews Sisters. In Los Angeles, Almeida immediately went to work in film studio orchestras.

Almeida was first introduced to the jazz public as a featured guitarist with the Stan Kenton band in the late 1940s during the height of its success. Famed Kenton arranger Pete Rugolo 

composed "Lament" specifically for Almeida's cool, quiet sound, and Almeida's own composition "Amazonia" was also featured by the Kenton orchestra. Almeida stayed with Kenton until 1952.

Almeida's recording career enjoyed auspicious early success with the 1953 recordings now called Brazilliance No. 1 and No. 2 with fellow Kenton alumnus Bud Shank, bassist Harry Babasin, and drummer Roy Harte. Widely regarded as "landmark" recordings, Almeida and Shank's combination of Brazilian and jazz rhythms presaged the fusion of Latin and jazz, which is quite different in bossa nova, although jazz critic Leonard Feather credited Almeida and Shank as the creators of bossa nova sound.

                                

Almeida's classical solo recording career on Capitol Records began in 1954 with The Guitar Music of Spain. Almeida made a series of highly successful classical recordings produced by Robert E. Myers.Among Almeida's notable classical recordings is an album widely considered to be the first classical crossover album, the 

1958 Grammy winner Duets with Spanish Guitar with mezzo soprano Salli Terri and flutist Martin Ruderman. The recording was nominated for two Grammy Awards and won for Best Classical Engineering for Sherwood Hall III at the first Grammy Awards ceremony.

Of Almeida's five career Grammys, four were awarded in classical categories. His classical recording discography also includes the debut recordings of two major guitar works, Heitor Villa-Lobos' Guitar Concerto and Radamés Gnattali's Concerto de Copacabana.

In 1964, Almeida again expanded his recording repertoire by joining forces with the Modern Jazz Quartet on Collaboration (Atlantic Records), which combined classical with jazz, called "chamber jazz." Almeida also toured with the MJQ, both in the 1960s and again in the 1990s.

In addition to his recording achievements, Almeida continued his work with the film studios throughout his career, playing guitar, lute, mandolin and other instruments for more than 800 motion picture and television soundtracks. He composed the complete film scores for ten motion pictures and portions for hundreds of others, including Charles and Ray Eames's 1957 film Day of the Dead. His final film work was in "The Cat in the Hat" (2003) in which his whistling cover of "The Girl From Ipanema" is briefly heard.

In the 1970s, Almeida reunited with Bud Shank, forming The L.A. Four with Ray Brown and Chuck Flores. From 1974 to 1982, the L.A. Four toured internationally and recorded a series of albums for Concord Jazz. In 1980, Almeida joined forces with Charlie Byrd on a series of highly regarded recordings, including Latin Odyssey, Brazilian Soul and Tango. He also recorded with Baden Powell, Stan Getz and Herbie Mann, among others. His guitar trio, Guitarjam, with Larry Coryell and Sharon Isbin played Carnegie Hall in 1988. In the 1990s, Almeida toured again with the Modern Jazz Quartet. 

From 1992, Almeida was teaching, recording and performing until the week before his death of leukemia on July 26, 1995, at age 77 in Los Angeles, California.

(Edited from Wikipedia)