Laurindo José de Araújo Almeida Nóbrega Neto was born on September 2, 1917, in the village of Prainha, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. His mother was a classically trained pianist who loved Chopin, and he took up the guitar by borrowing his sister's instrument and teaching himself by ear, carrying over what he had heard her play at the piano. His father died of typhoid fever when he was nine. At twelve he moved to the city of São Paulo with his brother, and in the hospital after being wounded as a teenage soldier he met the guitarist Garoto, with whom he later performed and recorded. In 1935 he settled in Rio de Janeiro, worked in radio as a songwriter, arranger and multi-instrumentalist, partnered with the singer and tenor guitarist Nestor Amaral, and played the Casino da Urca. He also collected American jazz records on 78 rpm, with a particular fondness for Fats Waller. In 1936 he played banjo in the orchestra of a cruise ship that called at ports from Spain to Germany, and in Paris he heard Django Reinhardt and Stéphane Grappelli at the Hot Club de France, an experience he counted as a lifelong inspiration.

Back in Brazil he played the Casino Copacabana in 1941, toured with Carmen Miranda, and in 1947 moved to Los Angeles, a trip paid for by royalties from his song "Johnny Peddler," a hit for the Andrews Sisters. He went straight into the film-studio orchestras, and his habit of playing with the bare fingers rather than a pick set him apart on the scene. Soon after arriving he joined Stan Kenton's orchestra as featured guitarist. The Progressive Jazz band that Kenton formed in September 1947 added Almeida's classical guitar and Jack Costanzo's bongos, both firsts for a jazz orchestra, and Kenton's arranger Pete Rugolo wrote "Lament" for Almeida's quiet sound, while Almeida's own "Amazonia" was also featured. He stayed with the organization until 1952, and in 1950 Capitol issued his first album as a leader, Concert Creations for Guitar.

In 1953 and 1954 he recorded a quartet album for Pacific Jazz with the alto saxophonist Bud Shank, bassist Harry Babasin and drummer Roy Harte. First issued in 1954 as a ten-inch LP and in 1955 in expanded form as Laurindo Almeida Quartet Featuring Bud Shank, and later reissued as Brazilliance, it paired Brazilian rhythms with West Coast jazz improvisation, which Almeida called samba-jazz. The critic Leonard Feather credited Almeida and Shank with creating the bossa nova sound, although other writers note that the beat, harmony and economy of expression differ from the bossa nova of the late 1950s and are better described as a precursor. Almeida and Shank made several more Brazilian-jazz albums in the years that followed. At the same time Almeida built a second career at Capitol, where, beginning in 1954, he recorded a long series of solo-guitar and Spanish and Latin American repertoire albums, including Duets with the Spanish Guitar (1958) with the mezzo-soprano Salli Terri and flutist Martin Ruderman, often described as the first classical crossover album, and the first recordings of Heitor Villa-Lobos's Guitar Concerto and Radamés Gnattali's Concerto de Copacabana. He played guitar, lute, mandolin and other instruments on more than 800 film and television soundtracks, among them The Godfather (1972), and composed the complete scores for ten films.

The bossa nova boom of the early 1960s brought him back to jazz. Viva Bossa Nova! (1962), credited to Almeida and the Bossa Nova All Stars, reached number 9 on the Billboard album chart, and he played on records by Stan Getz, Shorty Rogers and Cal Tjader. In March 1963 he was the guest artist on a Verve album led by Getz, and in 1964 he made Collaboration, a chamber-jazz album for Atlantic with the Modern Jazz Quartet recorded on July 21, 1964, which led to tours with the quartet in the 1960s and again in the 1990s. That year his solo album Guitar from Ipanema won the Grammy for best instrumental jazz performance by a large group or soloist with a large group, presented on April 13, 1965, while Collaboration was nominated in the small-group category. Of his five Grammys, four were in classical categories; he was the first guitarist honored in both classical and jazz.

In 1974 he and Shank formed the L.A. Four with bassist Ray Brown and drummer Shelly Manne, first documented on The L.A. Four Scores!, recorded live at the Concord Summer Festival on July 27, 1974. Jeff Hamilton took over the drum chair after 1977. The group toured Australia in 1975, recorded ten albums for Concord Jazz and East Wind, and performed until 1982. In 1980 Almeida began a run of Concord albums with Charlie Byrd, including Brazilian Soul, Latin Odyssey and Tango, and in 1988 he formed the trio Guitarjam with Larry Coryell and Sharon Isbin, which played Carnegie Hall. Outra Vez (1992) is a live trio set recorded in October 1991 with bassist Bob Magnusson and drummer Jim Plank. He was teaching, recording and performing until the week before he passed away from leukemia in Los Angeles on July 26, 1995, at 77. His papers are held by the Library of Congress and California State University, Northridge, and in 2004 the Japanese producer Nujabes built "Aruarian Dance," from the Samurai Champloo soundtrack, on a sample of Almeida's recording of "The Lamp Is Low."

Almeida played nylon-string guitar with the bare fingers rather than a pick, and the same hands moved between Segovia-style classical repertoire, Brazilian choro and samba, and jazz improvisation. When asked about his favorite guitarists he named the classical virtuoso Andrés Segovia and Oscar Moore of the King Cole Trio, and Django Reinhardt, Garoto and Fats Waller were earlier influences. Writers describe his harmonic command, quiet dynamics and ornamental touch, and his arrangements carried baiao, samba and choro rhythms into American ensembles, first Stan Kenton's orchestra and then the West Coast jazz of Bud Shank. That combination made him one of the first musicians to put Brazilian rhythm and jazz improvisation on the same record, and Leonard Feather and others credited the 1953 and 1954 Pacific Jazz sessions as the root of bossa nova, a claim others qualify. His jazz standing rests on the Kenton orchestra, the Shank quartet records, the Modern Jazz Quartet album, the L.A. Four and his long association with Concord Jazz. A large part of his output sits outside jazz: a Capitol catalog dominated by classical, Spanish and Latin American guitar albums, more than 800 film and television soundtrack credits, and four of his five Grammys in classical categories. His reputation among jazz listeners rests on the jazz work, while he moved easily among all three worlds.