This archive report was first published on 7 July 2019.
Joao Gilberto, the legendary Brazilian bossa nova singer and guitarist, has passed away at the age of 88. His death was announced on Facebook by his son, who lives in the US.
"My father has passed," the son wrote. "His fight was noble, he tried to maintain dignity in light of losing his sovereignty."
Gilberto's soft voice singing "The Girl From Ipanema" in the 1960s made him world famous. However, in his later years, he was living alone in a borrowed house in Rio de Janeiro, deeply in debt.
Despite his personal struggles, Gilberto's impact on Brazilian music was immense. He brought the sounds of bossa nova to jazz festivals and concert halls around the world, putting Brazilian music on the map.
As music critic Bernardo Araujo of O Globo newspaper noted last year, Gilberto's importance was "incalculable." "He was the principal voice of the best known Brazilian style in the world and a revolutionary without even really meaning to be," Araujo told AFP.
Gilberto collaborated with jazz greats Stan Getz, Herbie Hancock, and fellow Brazilian Antonio Carlos Jobim on many of his albums. However, his later years were marred by a bitter conflict between his children and his last wife, Claudia Faissol.
His children, Joao Marcelo and Bebel Gilberto, accused Faissol of taking advantage of their father's mental and physical decline and contributing to his financial ruin. In 2017, Bebel was named her father's legal guardian due to his declining competence.
As biographer Ruy Castro noted, Gilberto's personal life was a stark contrast to his success on stage. "In front of the microphone he succeeded," Castro said, "but off stage it was the opposite."
