Laurindo Almeida was born Laurindo Jose de Araujo Almeida Nobrega Neto on September 2, 1917 in Prainha, a village in Brazil's São Paulo State, near the port city of Santos. He was completely self-taught as a musician, except for some early training from his mother, an amateur pianist. Along with Antonio Carlos Jobim he was a pioneer in bossa nova, introducing the Brazilian sound to the US even before its heyday in the early 1960s. Stan Kenton heard Almeida playing in a Rio De Janeiro nightclub and invited him to come to the U.S. in 1947. He played with Kenton's band during the height of its success in the late 1940s, then settled in Los Angeles, working both as a studio musician and an active member of the jazz scene. In 1953, Almeida recorded two LPs with Bud Shank, on alto sax, a blend of Brazilian guitar and American jazz.
He recorded with Stan Getz, Herbie Mann, and others, and enjoyed some success when bossa nova was at its peak with his own album, "Viva Bossa Nova." Almeida also wrote occasionally for films. With Shank, Shelley Manne, and Ray Brown, he formed the L.A. Four, a chamber jazz group that enjoyed steady success from the late 1960s into the early 1980s. He also performed classical music, winning Grammys for the albums "Spanish Guitars of Laurindo Almeida" and "Conversations with the Guitar" in 1961, for "Reverie for Spanish Guitars" and "Discantus" in 1962, and for "Guitar from Ipanema," in 1965.
