Jazz has always included what Jelly Roll Morton referred to as a ‘Spanish tinge’, dating back to the music’s origins in the melting pot of New Orleans in the early 20th Century.
In the late 1940s Dizzy Gillespie pioneered Afro-Cuban jazz with his big band, and in collaboration with the composer and percussionist Chano Pozo, who wrote the Latin jazz standards ‘Manteca’ and ‘Tin Tin Deo’.
In the mid-1960s Bossa nova, a fusion of Brazilian samba and jazz harmony, became incredibly popular, with American saxophonist Stan Getz recording a Grammy-winning collaboration with Brazilian guitarist/singer Joao Gilberto, which has remained one of the most important jazz albums of all time.
The album’s biggest hit was ‘The Girl from Ipanema’, which like many of the most famous Bossa novas was composed by Antônio Carlos Jobim.
Numerous jazz musicians have since taken inspiration from various types of Latin music.
Key latin jazz albums
Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto – Getz/Gilberto The Girl From Ipanema
Dizzy Gillespie – Afro Caravan
Kenny Dorham – Afro-Cuban Minor’s Holiday
Elis Regina and Antônio Carlos Jobim – Elis and Tom Corcovado
Antônio Carlos Jobim – Wave Wave
