Bebel Gilberto

Family and early years

Bebel Gilberto was born Isabel in New York City on 12 May 1966. Her father is João Gilberto, a pioneer of bossa nova, her mother the singer Miúcha, and her uncle the songwriter Chico Buarque. She lived in Mexico at three, moved to Rio de Janeiro at five, and later divided her time between her mother in Rio and her father in New York. She has described a childhood of "music nonstop" and said her father taught her to be a perfectionist and her mother taught her "how to lose it".

At seven she made her recording debut on her mother's first solo album, Miúcha & Antonio Carlos Jobim, released in 1977. Her first record of her own was a self-titled 1986 EP on WEA, including a song written with Cazuza and Dé Palmeira of the band Barão Vermelho. Cazuza was a close friend, and they wrote several songs together, among them Mais Feliz. In 1991 she moved to Manhattan, where she still lives while sharing her time with Brazil. Before her own albums she took part in the Red Hot + Rio benefit record and sang Technova and Batucada on Towa Tei's Future Listening!. The BBC noted that she spent more than ten years working on other people's records before making a full album of her own.

Tanto Tempo

Tanto Tempo, whose title means "So Much Time", came out in 2000 on Ziriguiboom, the Brazilian-music imprint of Crammed Discs. Suba produced it and Béco Dranoff co-produced. Suba, the Serbian-born musician Mitar Subotić, died in a studio fire on 2 November 1999 while working on its post-production.

The album sets older songs beside new ones, with samples and loops under the singing. It opens with Samba da Bênção, a song by Baden Powell and Vinicius de Moraes, over a backing track taken from Amon Tobin's Nova. It also holds Marcos Valle's 1964 standard So Nice (Summer Samba), Bananeira, Samba e Amor, a Chico Buarque song, and originals such as August Day Song, the title track Tanto Tempo, Lonely and Close Your Eyes.

The BBC called it "a quiet triumph, a very modern marriage of classic styles and new technology" and praised its cunningly arranged samples and collages. Crammed says it sold a million copies worldwide, the label's biggest commercial success. By 2009 it had sold 309,000 copies in the United States. PopMatters called it the third biggest selling Brazilian album in United States history, and it is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Four more albums

Bebel Gilberto (2004), also on Ziriguiboom, moved toward an acoustic lounge sound. Pitchfork found its melodies floating over bossa-tinged arrangements, with subtle electronics from Marius DeVries and Guy Sigsworth. It includes an English-language version of Baby, and by 2005 it had sold 101,000 copies in the United States.

Momento (2007) was recorded in Rio, London and New York. Sigsworth produced four of its eleven tracks, horns from Orquestra Imperial feature on Tranquilo, and the first single was Bring Back the Love. All in One (2009) was her first record for Verve. It was made in New York, Jamaica and Bahia, with Mark Ronson, John King, Daniel Jobim, Carlinhos Brown, Didi Gutman and Mario Caldato Jr. among the producers. PopMatters called it "a contented album by a contented woman".

Tudo followed in 2014 on Sony, and its title song was nominated for a Latin Grammy for Best Brazilian Song. Agora (2020), produced by Thomas Bartlett, includes a song she wrote for her father. Bartlett also produced João in 2023, a tribute to her father's repertoire recorded at Reservoir Studios in New York.

Stage and screen

The Internet Archive holds two live recordings: a 2000 concert at Bimbo's that mixes Tanto Tempo songs with others such as Isn't She Lovely and Batucada, and a short 2001 set from the Montreux Jazz Festival that begins with So Nice. On 29 September 2009 she played an early, intimate set at The Box in New York to celebrate All in One, mixing new songs such as Bim Bom and The Real Thing with Tanto Tempo favorites.

Her songs have turned up on screen. Nip/Tuck used Lonely as its pilot theme in 2003, and So Nice was heard in the Globo telenovela Laços de Família in 2000. She voiced the bird Eva in the animated film Rio in 2011. Since Tanto Tempo she has sold more than 2.5 million records.