SAUDADE -Radames Gnattali - arranged by Laurindo Almeida

Radamés Gnattali (27 January 1906 – 3 February 1988) was one of the most important Brazilian Composers; he was also a conductor, orchestrator, and arranger.
Radamés Gnattali was born in Porto Alegre - the capital of Rio Grande do Sul, the southernmost state of Brazil - on 27 January 1906. His parents were both musicians who had emigrated from Italy at the end of the 19th century. His mother, Adélia Fossati, was a pianist and music teacher. His father, Alessandro Gnattali, had been a carpenter in Italy, but after arriving in Brazil applied his passion for music to creating a new career for himself as a successful bassoonist and conductor (as a union leader with strong anarchist sympathies he also went on to organize a strike of the musicians' union in 1921). The couple had five children, three of whom, including Radamés, were named after characters from Verdi operas (the others being Aida and Ernani).
In 1920, at the age of 14, he entered the School of Fine Arts at the University of Rio Grande do Sul, where he studied with the musicologist and piano teacher Guilherme Fontainha (a student of Vianna da Motta), eventually winning a gold medal for piano playing in 1924. He then moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he gave a series of successful piano recitals, while also studying at the National Music Institute. His lifelong association with Ernesto Nazareth, the renowned composer of Brazilian national music dates from this period. Back in Porto Alegre due to lack of money, Gnattali founded the Quarteto Henrique Oswald, in which he played first as a pianist and then as a violinist. A 1929 performance as soloist in Tchaikovsky's B-flat piano concerto, played with the orchestra of the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, was praised in the press but did not lead to a long-term career as a concert pianist. Instead, Gnattali began a career in Rio as a successful conductor and arranger of popular music—activities which tended to divert his attention from other genres. Financial needs led him to work for radio stations and record companies as a pianist, conductor and arranger of popular music. Gnattali's musical career straddled popular and classical genres and their traditions. His arrangements of samba pieces, involving strings, woodwind and brass (rather than the traditional accompaniments with two guitars, cavaquinho, accordion, tamborin and flute) exposed him to lifelong critical attacks from Brazilian musical traditionalists who resented the "jazzing up" of the genre.
LAURINDO ALMEIDA
Laurindo Jose de Araujo Almeida Nobrega Neto, popularly known as, Laurindo Almeida (September 2, 1917 – July 26, 1995) was a Brazilian guitarist and composer in classical, jazz, and Latin music. He was one of the pioneers in the creation of bossa nova. Almeida was the first guitarist to receive Grammy Awards for both classical and jazz performances. His discography encompasses more than a hundred recordings over five decades.
Born into a musical family, Almeida was a self-taught guitarist. During his teenage years, Almeida moved to São Paulo, where he worked as a radio artist, staff arranger and nightclub performer. At the age of 19, he worked his way to Europe playing guitar in a cruise ship orchestra. In Paris, he attended a performance at the Hot Club de France by Stéphane Grappelli and famed guitarist Django Reinhardt, who became a lifelong artistic inspiration.
Returning to Brazil, Almeida continued composing and performing. He became known for playing both classical Spanish and popular guitar. He moved to the United States in 1947; a trip financed when one of his compositions, a song known as "Johnny Peddler" became a hit recorded by the Andrews Sisters. In Los Angeles, Almeida immediately went to work in film studio orchestras.