Biography

Dorival "Dori" Tostes Caymmi (born 26 August 1943) is a Brazilian singer, songwriter, guitarist, arranger, and producer. Caymmi was born in Rio de Janeiro to parents who were musicians, his father Dorival Caymmi a composer and his mother Stella Maris a singer. When he was eight, he started piano lessons. At the Conservatório Lorenzo Fernandez, he studied music theory and harmony. He became a professional musician in 1959 when he accompanied his sister Nana in a performance.During the next year, he became a member of Grupo dos Sete and composed music for TV. He directed the play Opinião and performed on violão for it in 1964, contributing to the growth of música popular brasileira (MPB). He worked as a producer for Eumir Deodato, Edu Lobo, and Nara Leão and as a composer with Nelson Motta. He and Motta were an effective songwriting duo. Their song "Saveiros" won a national competition. "O Cantador" was covered by Sarah Vaughan and Natalie Cole, while "Festa" was covered by Sérgio Mendes.He worked as guitarist and arranger for Paul Winter's band and toured with him in the U.S. He arranged albums by Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, and Gilberto Gil. He was involved with musicians associated with the tropicalia movement of the late 1960s but did not record in this style because he disliked pop music. During the 1970s and '80s, he composed TV and movie soundtracks, including Crônica da Casa Assassinada (1971), which wrote with Antonio Carlos Jobim. In 1989, he moved to Los Angeles, California.His album Cinema: A Romantic Vision (Zebra, 1999) received a Latin Grammy Award nomination for his arrangement of The Pink Panther theme by Henry Mancini.Influências was nominated for a Latin Grammy for Best Contemporary Brazilian album in 2001. Some of its songs pay homage to his father: "La Vem A Baiana" and "Acontece Que Eu Sou Baiano". Contemporâneos, recorded in 2003, was nominated for a Latin Grammy for Best Contemporary Brazilian album. His 2013 album Caymmi, with siblings Nana Caymmi and Danilo Caymmi, was nominated for the 2014 Latin Grammy Award for Best MPB Album. In 2015, he was nominated for the Latin Grammy Awards again, this time with Mario Adnet and for the Best MPB Album and Producer of the Year categories, for producing the album Centenário Caymmi.