João Donato

João Donato - born João Donato de Oliveira Neto in Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil on August 17, 1934 – was a Brazilian jazz / bossa nova pianist and composer. Throughout his career he worked with some of the most popular musicians in Brazil such as Altamiro Carrilho, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Astrud Gilberto. By the time he was 15, he was already playing accordion professionally at the Sinatra-Farney Fan Club. After making his recording debut as a backing musician for Altamiro Carrilho, João Donato released his first solo album in 1953 and became the frontman for the bossa nova band Os Namorados. During a brief stint as arranger for the band Garotos da Lua, he befriended João Gilberto, with whom he co-wrote the hit “Minha Saudade.” As trends changed over the course of the next few years, João Donato found it difficult to find paying gigs in Brazil, causing him to emigrate to the US. There, he became a staple of the emerging Latin jazz scene, working closely with Mongo Santamaría, Tito Puente, Bud Shank, and Cal Tjader. Throughout the 1970s, he delivered a series of classic jazz fusion albums such as A Bad Donato (1970), Quem e Quem (1973), and DonatoDeodato (1973), and became the musical director for Gal Costa. Subsequently, João Donato kept recording and releasing new music well into the 21st century, winning a Latin Grammy for Best Latin Jazz Album for 2010’s Sambolero. In 2021, he collaborated with producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad (of A Tribe Called Quest fame) and composer Adrian Younge on Jazz Is Dead 7, the seventh installment in a series that aimed to bridge the gap between jazz and hip-hop. In 2022, he returned with the acclaimed album Serotonina. João Donato died on July 17, 2023, at the age of 88.

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