Astrud Gilberto: 29 March 1940 – 5 June 2023

So tchau and obrigada, Brazilian samba and bossa nova icon Astrud Gilberto, who has died aged 83. Most famously the singer behind 'The Girl From Ipanema', the silky Sixties pop-jazz ear worm that kept the four-time-Grammy-winning, Creed Taylor-produced Getz/Gilberto riding the US charts for an astounding two years, she leaves behind a substantial legacy as a vocalist, composer, producer and actress, and a reputation as a victim of music industry greed and #MeToo-style misogyny that could do with redressing.

Born Astrud Evangelina Weinert in Salvador, Bahia, to a German father, a language professor, and a Brazilian multi-instrumentalist mother, the young Astrud grew up in Rio de Janeiro in a household steeped in music. Her inherited knack for languages - she would go on to speak French, Italian, Spanish, English and Japanese as well as her native Portuguese - arguably heightened her powers of interpretation; she brought a fresh, accessible dimension to American tunes including 'Fly Me To The Moon' and 'The Shadow of Your Smile' with a knowing sparkle that eluded the likes of Sinatra. A fine songwriter, her live shows featured many of her original compositions; most of the tracks on Jungle, released in 2002 and her final album, are hers. Bacharach/David's 'The Look of Love' is on that one, too, a version right up there with Dusty's.

Sure, she came to international attention after serendipitously being in the A&R recording studios in New York with her guitarist husband Joao Gilberto, the bossa nova pioneer she'd married in 1959, and renowned American tenor saxophonist Stan Getz. 'Garota de Ipanema', a tune composed in 1962 by pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes about the passing of time, had been given an English translation by Norman Gimbel (who would write 'Killing Me Softly'). Astrud Gilberto, 22, said she'd sing it.

She had no previous recording experience. But her duet with her husband was so beguiling, so dreamy, that she was asked to sing on another Jobim track, 'Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars)'. By all accounts, all involved twigged that 'The Girl From Ipanema' would be a smash. Creed Taylor and the allegedly unpleasant Getz would later take credit for Astrud Gilberto's inclusion, which rankled: "Nothing is further from the truth," she said in 1982. "I suppose I should feel flattered by the importance they lend to this."

Re-edited without Joao's Portuguese-language vocals and released as a solo single, 'The  Girl From Ipanema' went gangbusters in 1964, the same year the couple divorced. Astrud Gilberto toured the US with Getz and his band, her small son Marcelo in tow, a period made more difficult by the lack of a credit on the original pressing of Getz/Gilberto, by the saxophonist's poor pay and apparent determination that she receive no royalties, and by her outrageously sexist treatment in the Brazilian press and by many Brazilian musicians. Following a concert in Rio in 1965 the US-based Gilberto never performed in her home country again.

Then there was her stage fright, which she tackled head on by studying with method queen Stella Adler for two years - after appearing in two motion pictures, 1964's The Hanged Man and that same year's Get Yourself A College Girl alongside The Dave Clark Five and organist Jimmy Smith. Her 1965 solo debut The Astrud Gilberto Album was a bestseller, as were releases such as 1966's Gil Evans-arranged Look to the Rainbow and 1971's Gilberto With Turrentine, works that underscored her passion for jazz's major players (she also worked with Quincy Jones on the soundtrack of the Sidney Lumet-directed 1967 film The Deadly Affair). Her 1977 album That Girl From Ipanema featured Chet Baker, a childhood idol, on a version of 'Far Away', for which she wrote the melody (and indeed, a disco version of 'The Girl....' that she wasn't paid for).

There were other oversights; her family (including her son Gregory from her defunct second marriage to Nicholas LaSorsa) claimed she was never compensated or credited for her production work; in these and other instances, her trusting nature was to her detriment. Still, when bossa nova made a comeback in the early Eighties, and with Gilberto cited as a major influence by the likes of Sade and Everything But the Girl, she assembled a band on guitars, drums, keys, trombone and percussion and - with Marcelo as bassist and road manager - toured the US, Canada, Europe and Japan. She was so big in Japan that she released albums there and nowhere else (their emergence in the west is only a matter of time), while 1987's Astrud Gilberto Plus The James Last Orchestra included 'I'm Nothing Without You' - her lyrics over Jobim's melody.

In 1990 she formed Gregmar Productions with her sons, continuing to record and sell-out venues including SOB's in New York City and House of Blues in Los Angeles. In 1992 she received the Latin Jazz USA Award for Lifetime Achievement; in 2002 was inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame, after which she announced she was taking indefinite time off from public performances. She lived her last years in Philadelphia, allegedly in an apartment overlooking a river: painting, reading philosophy, campaigning against cruelty to animals. Feeling the love of a global army of fans, and a family that included her granddaughter, Sofia Gilberto.

"I love and will love Astrud forever," Sofia wrote in a social media post. "She was the face and voice of bossa nova in most parts of the planet. Astrud will be forever in our hearts."