Eumir Deodato

Eumir Deodato
Deodato in Venice, c. 1970
Background information
Birth name	Eumir Deodato de Almeida
Also known as	Deodato
Born	(1943-06-22) 22 June 1943 (age 81) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Genres	Jazz fusion smooth jazz[1] crossover jazz bossa nova Latin jazz disco
Occupations	Musician composer arranger record producer
Instrument	Piano
Years active	1959–present
Labels	CTI, MCA, Warner Bros.
Spouse	Ruth Deodato ​ ​ (m. 1963, div. 1999)​ Mary Ellen Deodato ​ (died 2021)​ [2]

Eumir Deodato de Almeida (Brazilian Portuguese: [ẽwˈmiʁ deoˈdatu]; born 22 June 1943)^[3] is a Brazilian pianist, composer, arranger and record producer, primarily in jazz but who has been known for his eclectic melding of genres, such as pop, rock, disco, rhythm and blues, classical, Latin and bossa nova.^[4]

Deodato has arranged and produced more than 500 records for acts such as Frank Sinatra, Roberta Flack, Björk and Christophe, as well as produced Kool & the Gang's hits "Celebration", "Ladies' Night" and "Too Hot".^[5]

Deodato was nominated for three Grammy Awards and won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1974 for "Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001)." The song peaked at number 2 on the weekly Billboard Hot 100 in March 1973.^[6] It reached number 3 in Canada and number 7 on the British charts.^[7][8]

Deodato, born in Rio De Janeiro on June 22, 1943, began his musical life on accordion when he was 12 years old, and then piano two years later. He studied orchestration, conducting and arranging. He played bossa nova in bands with Paulo Silvino and Orlandivo, then formed his own band, which featured João Palma, Sergio Barroso, Ugo Marotta, Henri Ackselrud and guitarist Celso Brando, who was later replaced by Roberto Menescal in 1962. Eumir’s paternal grandfather was a marble craftsman from Custonaci, Sicily.^[9]

Deodato often plays the Fender Rhodes electric piano. He became successful as a keyboard player in the 1970s. Since then, he has produced and arranged music on more than 500 albums for artists such as Kool & the Gang, Con Funk Shun, Björk, Christophe, Ithamara Koorax and k.d. lang. Guitarist John Tropea and flautist Hubert Laws appeared on his early albums.

Prelude, his first album in the U.S., was released in 1973.^[10] His track Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001) scored a big hit on the Billboard pop chart. This album was crossover music style that attracted a large audience and was produced by Creed Taylor for his label CTI. The album sold 5 million copies worldwide and earned Deodato the 1974 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance for the track Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001) as well as a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist.^[4]

His second album, Deodato 2, reached number 19 on the Billboard album chart, and the single "Rhapsody in Blue" reached No. 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1973.^[11] His interpretation of Pavane pour une infante défunte ("Pavane for a Dead Princess") by Maurice Ravel was used in the 1970s by an Australian television station as background music.

In 1978, he had an orchestral hit with "Whistle Bump" from the LP titled Love Island. The track promoted the widespread use of whistles in nightclubs at the time. However, his popularity in the discos was solidified when he released the 1979 single Night Cruiser from the album of the same name, which earned him a third Grammy nomination for Best R&B Instrumental Performance.^[12] Deodato continued recording through the 1980s. In 1985, he had two hits, "S.O.S., Fire in the Sky" and "Are You For Real", on Billboard magazine's top 20 Dance chart.^[13]

In 1998, Deodato invited his old friend and fellow Brazilian jazz impresario Arnaldo DeSouteiro to co-produce with him the first official CD reissues of all his albums from the 1960s, in a total of nine releases. Among them, Inútil Paisagem (reissued by JSR in co-production with Universal Music), Idéias, and all the albums from the Os Catedráticos series that were digitally remixed and remastered by audio engineer Rodrigo de Castro Lopes under the direct supervision of both Deodato and DeSouteiro.

He recorded Live in Rio in 2007. In 2009, Prelude was reissued for the first time in Asia on SACD and SHM-CD formats under the supervision of Arnaldo DeSouteiro. In 2011, he released the album The Crossing, which he produced with Lino Nicolosi and Pino Nicolosi at Nicolosi Productions, with guest vocalist Al Jarreau. In 2010 he played the rhodes piano in the album Oasis produced and performed by Marita Pauli. In 2018 he arranged and conducted the strings orchestra in the album The First released by Riccardo Dalli Cardillo.

Since the 1960s, Deodato has been in demand as a producer and arranger. He has worked on more than 500 albums, and 15 have reached platinum status as defined by the RIAA.

In the early 1960s, he worked as a freelance arranger for Odeon Records. He wrote arrangements for Wilson Simonal, Marcos Valle, Leny Andrade, Pery Ribeiro, Tito Madi and for his own debut album, Inútil Paisagem (1964),^[4] which was dedicated to the work of Antônio Carlos Jobim and recorded in Rio when Deodato was 22. Jobim praised him in the album's liner notes. Deodato played piano with guitarists Oscar Castro-Neves and Roberto Menescal, drummer Juquinha and an all-star cast including Copinha, J.T. Meirelles, Cipó, Paulo Moura.^[14] He has been credited for helping to start the career of Milton Nascimento; Deodato was part of a committee tasked with choosing songs for a festival and chose three by Nascimento.^[4]

He moved to New York City in 1967 to work with guitarist Luiz Bonfá, with whom he recorded seven albums and countless jingles. Bonfá also introduced him to vocalist Astrud Gilberto and record producer Creed Taylor, when they were reunited on the making of Astrud's "Beach Samba" album for Verve Records. Later on, Creed Taylor hired him to write arrangements for musicians at CTI Records who included Wes Montgomery, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Milton Nascimento, Walter Wanderley, Stanley Turrentine, Paul Desmond and the CTI All Stars. Deodato also recorded with Frank Sinatra, (1969), João Donato (1970), Youg, Holt Unlimited (1973), Aretha Franklin (1973), and recorded three albums with Roberta Flack from 1971 to 1973.

He had other collaborations, including producing four million-selling albums for Kool and the Gang from 1979 to 1982, the first solo album by Kevin Rowland of Dexys Midnight Runners in 1988, three albums four singer Ithamara Koorax, as well as records by Chuck Mangione, Larry Graham, Tania Maria, Eliane Elias, Pretty Poison, One Way, Con Funk Shun, Brenda K. Starr, Kleeer, and kd Lang. Deodato also developed a close collaboration with Icelandic singer Bjork from 1996 to 1998, arranging her albums Post, Telegram and Homogenic. For Deodato's Love Island, he and Maurice White co-wrote the instrumental "Tahiti Hut", which (with lyrics added to it) was later recorded by the band Switch with guest vocals by Jermaine Jackson.

Deodato wrote orchestral arrangements for the films The Gentle Rain (with original soundtrack by Luiz Bonfá in 1965), and ""The Adventurers" (with soundtrack by Antonio Carlos Jobim and additional score by Deodato in 1969), as well as the original soundtracks for ""Target Risk", "The Reporter", The Black Pearl (1977), The Onion Field (1979), ""Beat Street (1980) and Bossa Nova (2000), among many others. He also produced and arranged for the movies "Body Rock" and "The Ghostbusters II".

Eumir Deodato was married to Ruth Deodato from 1963 to 1999. Their daughter Kennya Deodato (b. 1968) is married to actor Stephen Baldwin.^[15] Their granddaughter Hailey Bieber is married to Canadian singer Justin Bieber.^[16]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eumir Deodato.

• Eumir Deodato discography at Discogs
• Eumir Deodato at AllMusic
• Eumir Deodato at IMDb