Deodato

Eumir Deodato’s career as a pianist and keyboardist, producer, and arranger encompasses more than 450 albums and has brought him 16 platinum certifications. Among the many leading figures with whom he has collaborated are Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Tom Jobim, Wes Montgomery, João Donato, Kool & the Gang—the ensemble he joined for the period 1979–1983—Earth, Wind & Fire, and Michael Franks. He has also supplied music for major film soundtracks, among them The Onion Field and The Exorcist. His own compositions have been recorded by Sarah Vaughan, Milt Jackson, Joe Pass, George Benson, Lee Ritenour, Pérez Prado, and the Emotions.

Deodato first took up the accordion at age 12. Two years afterward he began formal training in piano, orchestration, arrangement, and conducting, and he started performing at dances and nightclubs. In 1959 he entered the groups of Roberto Menescal and Durval Ferreira, where he worked within the bossa-nova idiom; his earliest pieces date from that phase. He assembled his initial ensemble in 1962, counting Roberto Menescal among its members. After leaving that band, Deodato accepted freelance arranging assignments at Odeon and contributed to the first albums by Wilson Simonal and Marcos Valle. In 1964 he arranged and conducted the album Inútil Paisagem while also recording Os Gatos. With Os Catedráticos he made the LPs Impulso! Samba (1964), Tremendão (1964), and Ataque, the last of which includes his compositions “Ataque” and “Razão de Viver,” the latter written with Paulo Sérgio Valle. He sat on the committee that chose material for the earliest editions of the historic International Song Festival, FIC, and his selection of three songs by Milton Nascimento for the II FIC in 1967 is widely regarded as the step that launched the songwriter.

Deodato relocated to New York in 1967 to prepare arrangements for a Luiz Bonfá album featuring Maria Helena Toledo. While scoring Astrud Gilberto’s Beach Samba he met Creed Taylor, who then commissioned him to arrange sessions for additional CTI artists including Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Roberta Flack, Paul Desmond, Tom Jobim, Walter Wanderley, and Aretha Franklin. During the same stretch he also collaborated with Ray Bryant. In 1969 he issued the classic album Donato/Deodato alongside João Donato. His treatment of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (Richard Strauss) appeared on the 1973 release Prelude, which sold five million copies, received honors from Billboard, Cashbox, Record World, and Playboy, and earned a Grammy for Best Instrumental Pop/Rock performance. After performing at the Hollywood Bowl with the CTI All-Stars Band, he assembled his own group, which made its New York debut at Madison Square Garden in 1973. Following years of intensive touring, arranging, producing, and issuing solo albums, Deodato arranged Björk’s projects Post, Telegram, and Homogenic. In the 1990s he also worked with the Brazilian artists Gal Costa, Titãs (Vol. II), and Carlinhos Brown (Omelete Man). In 2000 he supplied the arrangements for the soundtrack of Bruno Barreto’s film Bossa Nova.