The singer Gal Costa, 12 years old when that record came out, later said that “it changed my life, and not only my life but the lives of everyone in my generation.” In his book “Tropical Truth” (2003), Mr. Veloso called it “the manifesto and the masterpiece of a movement: the mother ship.”

Bossa nova was featured in the soundtrack of the 1959 French-Brazilian film “Orfeu Negro” (“Black Orpheus”), which won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film, and soon American musicians were investigating and emulating its sound. The album “Jazz Samba,” by Stan Getz and the guitarist Charlie Byrd, was strongly influenced by Mr. Gilberto’s recordings; released in the spring of 1962, it reached No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. That November, Mr. Gilberto traveled to New York for the first time for an appearance at Carnegie Hall as part of a bossa nova package concert.

At the same time, in pop songs like Eydie Gormé’s “Blame It on the Bossa Nova,” bossa nova meant something different: exotic and slightly upmarket, with a newly American-made dance to go along with it. By the end of 1963, the ethnomusicologist Kariann Goldschmitt wrote, the phrase had been used to advertise “cashmere sweaters, throw rugs, ice cream and new haircuts.”

A Hit With ‘Ipanema’

With Astrud (Weinert) Gilberto, whom he had married in 1959, Mr. Gilberto took up residence in the United States in 1963. That year he collaborated with Getz on the album “Getz/Gilberto,” which included the Jobim-de Moraes song “Garota da Ipanema,” sung by both Astrud (in English) and João (in Portuguese); released as “The Girl From Ipanema,” the song won the 1964 Grammy for record of the year and “Getz/Gilberto” was named album of the year.

After divorcing Astrud and, in 1965, marrying another singer, Heloísa Buarque de Holanda — known in her own career as Miúcha — Mr. Gilberto moved to Weehawken, N.J., and then to Brooklyn. In 1970 the couple relocated to Mexico, where during a two-year stay he recorded the album “João Gilberto en Mexico.” He then returned to the United States, where he stayed until returning to Brazil in 1980. (Mr. Gilberto and Miúcha separated in the mid-1970s.)