Their collaboration became the landmark “Jazz Samba,” produced by Taylor and featuring two contributions from the gifted Brazilian songwriter and musician, Antonio Carlos Jobim: “Desafinado” and “Samba de Uma Nota Só.” Recorded in a few hours at a Black church in Washington, D.C., the album came out in 1962 and kept gaining attention, topping the Billboard pop chart the following year and selling more than 1 million copies. Getz won a Grammy for best jazz performance on “Desafinado.
A shortened version of “The Girl from Ipanema,” with only Astrud Gilberto’s vocals, became a top 10 hit. “The Girl from Ipanema” has since been covered by everyone from Frank Sinatra to Amy Winehouse and is often ranked just behind “Yesterday” as the world’s most recorded pop song. Taylor struggled after the mid-1970s, especially after a distribution deal with Motown ended with his filing for bankruptcy. He did resurrect the label in the late 1980s and had some success with Larry Coryell’s “Fallen Angel” album. More recently, he presided over the reissue of dozens of CTI albums, including releases by Benson, Ron Carter and Esther Phillips.