and The Girl from Ipanema''. In the 1940s Jobim started to play piano in bars and nightclubs of Rio de Janeiro, and in the first years of the 1950s he worked as an arranger in the Continental Studio, where in April 1953 he had his first composition recorded, when the Brazilian singer Mauricy Moura recorded Jobim's composition "Incerteza", with lyrics by
Newton Mendonça. Jobim became prominent in Brazil when he teamed up with poet and diplomat
Vinicius de Moraes to write the music for the play
Orfeu da Conceição (1956). The most popular song from the show was "Se Todos Fossem Iguais A Você" ("If Everyone Were Like You"). Later, when the play was adapted into a film, producer
Sacha Gordine did not want to use any of the existing music from the play. Gordine asked de Moraes and Jobim for a new score for the film
Orfeu Negro, or
Black Orpheus (1959). Moraes was at the time away in
Montevideo, Uruguay, working for the Itamaraty (the
Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and so he and Jobim were only able to write three songs, primarily over the telephone ("
A felicidade", "Frevo" and "O nosso amor"). This collaboration proved successful, and de Moraes went on to pen the lyrics to some of Jobim's most popular songs. In 1958 the Brazilian singer and guitarist
João Gilberto recorded his first album with two of Jobim's most famous songs, "Desafinado" and "Chega de Saudade". This album inaugurated the Bossa Nova movement in Brazil. The sophisticated harmonies of his songs caught the attention of jazz musicians in the United States, principally after his first performance at
Carnegie Hall, in 1962. A key event in making Jobim's music known in the English-speaking world was his collaboration with the American jazz saxophonist
Stan Getz, the Brazilian singer
João Gilberto, and Gilberto's wife at the time,
Astrud Gilberto, which resulted in two albums,
Getz/Gilberto (1964) and
Getz/Gilberto Vol. 2 (1966). The release of
Getz/Gilberto created a bossa nova craze in the United States and subsequently internationally. Getz had previously recorded
Jazz Samba with Charlie Byrd (1962), and
Jazz Samba Encore! with
Luiz Bonfá (1964). Jobim wrote many of the songs on
Getz/Gilberto, which became one of the best-selling
jazz albums of all time, and turned Astrud Gilberto, who sang on "Garota de Ipanema" ("
The Girl from Ipanema") and "
Corcovado" ("Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars"), into an international sensation. At the
Grammy Awards of 1965 Getz/Gilberto won the
Grammy Award for Album of the Year, the
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group and the
Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. "The Girl from Ipanema" won the
Grammy Award for Record of the Year. Among his later hits is "Águas de Março" ("
Waters of March", 1972), for which he wrote both the Portuguese and English lyrics, and which was then translated into French by
Georges Moustaki (as "Les Eaux de Mars", 1973). In talking about his creative process when writing and creating "
Girl From Ipanema", Jobim told
Roberto d’Ávila in 1981, "It comes to me in a way, then it changes one or two times and all of the sudden, it becomes something that makes sense…it's like the profile of a woman…the profile of a woman, something very discernible, then you say: ‘hey, this is really beautiful…’ then you stare and as soon as you stare, it's gone, I mean it becomes part of the past." Jobim continues, "I mean, every time you draw something it turns into, it's something static… that portrait remains forever." Due to the nature of their work relationship, Regina and Jobim grew close and had a symbiosis that is reflected in the result of their work together. "
Aguas de março" represents this, with the lyrics simulating a banter of finishing each other's sentences. ==Personal life==