Antônio Carlos "Tom" Jobim was born in 1927 and grew up in Rio de Janeiro's Ipanema neighborhood, starting piano at fourteen and drawing early inspiration from Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. In 1958 he began collaborating with singer-guitarist João Gilberto, and their song "Chega de Saudade" became the first bossa nova single, launching a genre built on transforming samba's rhythmic complexity into something quieter and more intimate.

Jobim's most famous composition, "Garota de Ipanema" ("The Girl from Ipanema"), written with lyricist Vinícius de Moraes in 1962, has been recorded well over 200 times by other artists and is widely regarded as one of the most recorded popular songs in history. Producer Creed Taylor's 1964 album Getz/Gilberto, pairing saxophonist Stan Getz with João Gilberto and featuring Astrud Gilberto's English-language vocal on "The Girl from Ipanema," became a global hit, won multiple Grammy Awards, and remains one of the best-selling jazz albums ever made. Creed Taylor's own career is covered in full in his JazzProfiles.com profile.

Jobim went on to collaborate with Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald through the 1960s and '70s, cementing his songs as a permanent part of the American jazz and pop repertoire. He continued composing and recording until his death from a heart attack following surgery at New York's Mount Sinai Hospital on December 8, 1994.

Jobim's songwriting, samba's harmonic sophistication distilled into intimate, understated melodies, created bossa nova as a genre and gave American jazz musicians a body of standards (including "The Girl from Ipanema," "Corcovado," and "Desafinado") as durable and widely covered as anything in the Great American Songbook.