Leny Andrade, ‘First Lady of Brazilian Jazz,’ Dies at 80

Leny Andrade, the Brazilian singer who earned a world following together with her soulful fusion of samba, bossa nova and American jazz and whom Tony Bennett as soon as known as the Ella Fitzgerald of Brazil, died on July 24 in Rio de Janeiro. She was 80.

Her dying, in a hospital, from pneumonia, was confirmed in an announcement by a Rio retirement dwelling for artists the place she was residing. She had additionally been handled for Lewy physique dementia.

Often known as “the first lady of Brazilian jazz,” Ms. Andrade (pronounced ahn-DRAH-jay) rose from the golf equipment of Rio, the place she carried out as a teen, to forge a six-decade profession, recording greater than 35 albums as a pioneer of what she got here to name bossa-jazz.

In 2007, Ms. Andrade received a Latin Grammy Award for “Ao Vivo,” a reside album with the celebrated Brazilian pianist César Camargo Mariano.

“Leny is one of the greatest improvisers in the world,” Mr. Bennett, who died final month, as soon as mentioned. “I love the way she sings. She is an original.”

Singing largely in Portuguese, Ms. Andrade introduced a richness and emotional depth to icily cool bossa nova tracks, pulse-quickening sambas and soulful ballads, which she infused with a world-weary sultriness.

In a evaluate of her American debut in 1983 on the Blue Note jazz membership in New York, John S. Wilson of The New York Times praised the emotive energy she delivered to “Cantador,” a ballad within the intense Edith Piaf custom. “Miss Andrade sings it in a darker, softer voice than Piaf’s,” he wrote, “with a dramatic effect that comes through even to a listener who doesn’t understand Portuguese.”

Ms. Andrade’s profession took off within the United States in 1993 after she moved to New York, the place she grew to become a preferred draw, acting at Birdland and different golf equipment, generally with Mr. Bennett and Liza Minnelli within the viewers. The following 12 months, she performed at Lincoln Center in addition to the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

Her voice, a deep, woody contralto with a seen-it-all air, carried a touch of a rasp from her lengthy love affair with cigarettes. The total impact may very well be mesmerizing.

“To describe Ms. Andrade as both the Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald of bossa nova only goes so far in evoking a performer whose voice seems to contain the body and soul of Brazil,” Stephen Holden wrote when reviewing a 2008 New York membership efficiency in The Times.

“You may think you know ‘The Girl From Ipanema,’” he continued, however “you haven’t really absorbed it until you’ve heard Ms. Andrade sing it in Portuguese; disgorge might be a better word than sing, since, like everything else she performs, it seems to well up from the center of the earth.”

For Ms. Andrade, singing introduced sustenance. “My soul is everything I can offer the public,” she mentioned in a 2013 interview with the Brazilian music web site Esquina Musical. “When I open my mouth, any pain goes away. I sing without fear. My friends and enemies embrace me.”

“When I sing,” she added, “I embark on a magic carpet out of here. I travel to Mars.”

Leny de Andrade Lima was born in Rio on Jan. 26, 1943. Her father, Luiz de Oliveira Lima, and mom, Ruth Couto de Andrade, divorced when Leny was younger. She grew up in Méier, a neighborhood within the metropolis’s North Zone, a hotbed of samba.

At the urging of her mom, Ms. Andrade studied classical piano and singing beginning at age 6. She earned a scholarship to the Brazilian Conservatory of Music. Beethoven and Brahms, nonetheless, weren’t her future.

She grew to become entranced with bossa nova (“new wave” in Portuguese), which fused conventional Brazilian rhythms with American jazz, because it emerged from the seashores of Brazil within the late Nineteen Fifties. She was additionally influenced by the samba stylings of the favored Brazilian singer Dolores Durán.

“I showed my piano diploma to my mother,” she mentioned in a 2013 interview on Brazilian tv, and informed her, “‘Forget about opera, classical music. I will sing popular music — because of Dolores Durán.’”

Her skilled profession started at 15, acting at dances with the bandleader Perminio Goncalves, chaperoned by her stepfather, Gustavo Paulo da Silva, since she was nonetheless a minor.

She later sang with the Sérgio Mendes Trio, a jazz combo, earlier than Mr. Mendes took his detour to worldwide pop stardom along with his band Brasil 66. “He said he hated samba; he didn’t play it,” Ms. Andrade informed Esquina Musical. “And I said the same about jazz. But we ended up giving in and mixing the two.”

She got here to embrace jazz and its improvisational wordless singing fashion generally known as scat. (In his 1983 Times evaluate, Mr. Wilson praised her scatting “agility that approaches Ella Fitzgerald.”)

In 1961, Ms. Andrade launched her first album, “A Sensação,” for RCA, moodily drawing from the samba of an earlier period. She hit her stride two years later, fusing bossa nova with conventional jazz on “A Arte Maior de Leny Andrade,” on Polydor.

She was married briefly when she was youthful and by no means had kids. Information about survivors was not instantly obtainable.

As a jazz singer, Ms. Andrade by no means loved roaring business success, however that truth didn’t disturb her. “I don’t make music for the masses,” she informed Esquina Musical. “They don’t have the ability to understand my work. Bad stuff is not in my repertoire.”

Flávia Milhorance contributed reporting from Rio de Janeiro