Luis Bonfa; Brazilian Composer and Guitarist

Luis Floriano Bonfa, the noted Brazilian guitarist and composer who played a pivotal role in the broad introduction of bossa nova music, has died.

Bonfa died of cancer Friday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian news media reported. He was 78.

The composer of more than 500 songs in a career spanning four decades, Bonfa was perhaps best known for “Manha De Carnaval” or “Carnival Morning,” from the legendary film “Black Orpheus.”

Born in Rio on Oct. 17, 1922, Bonfa began studying guitar with his father as a boy before beginning formal lessons at the age of 11. He established himself as a subtle and masterly guitarist in the post-World War II era, working the nightclub circuit and doing live radio broadcasts.

His guitar music grew in popularity in the 1950s, and he traveled to New York to perform. After playing at a private party, he was discovered by the singer and Broadway actress Mary Martin, who added him to her international tour.

At the end of the decade, he shot

to international fame with the music that he and Antonio Carlos Jobim wrote for the soundtrack to Marcel Camus’ classic film “Black Orpheus,” a retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, set during the time of Carnival in Rio. It won the Academy Award for best foreign language film in 1959 as well as the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

“ ‘Manha De Carnaval’ has been favored by jazz musicians since the ‘60s, largely because of its piquant harmonic shifts between minor and major underlying a marvelously soaring melody,” said Don Heckman, the Times jazz writer. “And, amazingly, despite the banal lyrics by Carl Sigman of an English version titled ‘A Day in the Life of a Fool,’ it has been a favorite with vocalists in a variety of genres.”

The film also introduced an international audience to bossa nova--a more sophisticated and less percussive samba style--and made Bonfa and Jobim stars.

For Bonfa, the film meant work in America with musicians such as Stan Getz and composing assignments for film studios in France, Italy and Brazil.

His reputation continued to grow as a guitarist.

Jobim, who died in 1994, once said, “Bonfa plays the guitar like no other, in a very personal, charismatic style. His guitar is a little orchestra.”

In recent years, however, Bonfa’s work slowed. His last major label release “The Bonfa Magic,” was recorded in 1991.