Sylvia Telles

During the 1950s and 1960s, Sylvia Telles stood out as perhaps Brazil’s finest vocalist, emerging before the bossa nova movement took shape yet quickly embracing it through her celebratory recordings of songs by Antonio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto. Her professional start came with a debut in 1955, followed the next year by her first interpretation of a Jobim composition. Further sessions paired her with Luiz Bonfá, and she devoted an entire album to Jobim’s catalog under the title Amor de Gente Moca. The early 1960s brought her initial visit to the United States, where she recorded the album U.S.A. with Barney Kessel and other musicians for Philips. Her marriage to producer Aloysio de Oliveira helped secure later contracts with Odeon and Elenco, the labels that employed him. She had only recently finished her second tribute to Jobim, the 1966 release The Music of Mr. Jobim (also issued as Sings the Wonderful Songs of Antonio Carlos Jobim), when a fatal car accident ended her life.