PARATI, Brazil -- The singer/guitarist's name was Andrea. As we wandered down the cobblestone street past Cafe Parati, she was playing a tune by Antonio Carlos Jobim, the composer of bossa nova classics such as "The Girl From Ipanema," "Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars)," and "Waters of March."

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Around the corner at Parati 33, the Marcos Nascimento Trio was performing another tune by Jobim.

And at Cafe Margarida, the guitar player, in between songs, saw us walk into the restaurant and launched into, well, "Every Breath You Take," by the Police. Is it because he sized us up as Anglos?

I approached him after the tune and told him I wanted to hear something Brazilian. He said, smiling broadly, "Oh, you want to hear 'Girl From Ipanema?' "

And so it goes, and goes and goes, in Parati, the town of a thousand guitar players, all of whom play Jobim, as well as other bossa nova and MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira) artists.

Jobim (1927-94), whom Brazilians refer to as Tom, is the most famous composer produced by Brazil. His music is known the world over. In the United States, Jobim's songs topped the charts during the '60s, performed by Stan Getz, Sergio Mendes, Frank Sinatra and many more.

Even today, Jobim songs figure prominently in the repertoire of jazz musicians, cabaret singers and others who like sophisticated popular songs: Yo-Yo Ma's "Obrigado Brasil" CDs, for example, include Jobim songs. Rod Stewart hasn't gotten around to "Ipanema" yet on his "standards" CDs, but I'm afraid he will.

Nevertheless, I'm surprised that many Americans may know Jobim's songs but don't recognize the name. (A jazz musicians' joke has it that when his tunes are announced on gigs, fans ask, "Who's Joe Beam?")

That's not the case in Brazil, where there's a Tom Jobim international airport in Rio de Janeiro (his hometown), and where Jobim's songs still rake in more royalties than any other composer's.

Jobim fashioned his musical revolution with elements of American jazz and of classical music (especially Ravel and Debussy and the Brazilian Villa-Lobos), together with the great Brazilian singer/guitarist Joao Gilberto (that's him and his then-wife Astrud, with Jobim and Getz on "Ipanema.") Gilberto managed to compress many of the rhythms of samba percussion instruments into swinging patterns that can be played by one person on guitar. He also perfected a quiet, sexy, almost vibrato-less style of singing; it's like someone whispering in your ear.

That style is alive and well enough today in Brazil, and nowhere more so than in Parati, where Brazilian tourists of a certain age expect a little Jobim with their caipirinha cocktails on the beach.

For example, when Janice and I took a five-hour cruise around the Bay of Parati, we were serenaded by Dedeca Zen on guitar and vocals. Zen, a 45-year-old Parati native dressed in muscle shirt, bathing trunks and sandals, played "Girl From Ipanema" as well as Jobim's "Samba do Aviao" (Song of the Jet) and a few more.

We also heard a particularly brilliant, classically trained guitarist -- Axel Guidice, an Argentinian who now lives in Parati -- playing instrumental versions of everything from the Beatles to Stevie Wonder to, you guessed it, "The Girl From Ipanema" in a restaurant in the historic district.

For myself, a student of the guitar, the Portuguese language and Brazilian music, it was a revelation to hear these bossa nova tunes in their natural habitat, if you will. The titles of Jobim songs such as "Wave" "Deserted Beaches," "Surfboard" and "The Dolphin" hint at the importance of sand and sea to the composer, and to be swaying on a little boat in a sun-dappled bay south of Rio is to come that much closer to Jobim's wellspring of inspiration.

All of Parati's guitarists, besides playing Jobim, cover some of the MPB musicians, the next generation whose style was both a reflection of Jobim's and Gilberto's influence and a reaction to them. Zen played tunes by Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso and Djavan, for example.

And, just for the record, when you're talking acoustic guitar in Brazil, you're talking nylon-stringed guitar -- not the steel-stringed guitars much more common in America.

Along with bossa nova and MPB, we also heard samba -- a much older style than bossa, dating back almost a hundred years, again to Rio de Janeiro. On a stage in the town square at a church festival in Parati, some local guys who called themselves Onda Nova (New Wave) were performing sambas with cavaquinho (a kind of ukulele) and percussion. Samba music tends to be harmonically simpler than bossa, more the music of the common man, and, with its more pronounced, danceable rhythms, some people find it more emotional and more fun.

One afternoon we were riding bikes in the hills outside Parati when we stopped on a street corner near a little outdoor bar. A few of the customers were pulling out percussion instruments and a cavaquinho. They launched into an impromptu session, and they were smokin'. A woman in the bar stood up and danced solo, and a little kid riding by on his bike started singing along.

Brazilian music, I'm afraid, is much too varied and vast to do justice to in this short article. But what I'm struggling to say is this -- there's nothing else quite like it in the whole, wide world. I'm already planning to go back and do a cultural tour of the best nightclubs and concert halls in Rio and Sao Paulo, to hear the big names.

In the meantime, there's a little bit of Brazilian music in Pittsburgh we can hear live. Kenia, a Rio native, lives here and sings MPB in bars and clubs. A Brazilian singer of both pop and classical, Lilly Abreu, also performs locally.

American guitarist Marty Ashby and trombonist/percussionist Jay Ashby are heavy into the Brazilian thing -- you might catch them playing at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, the beautiful, nonprofit jazz space on the North Side where they occasionally bring in "name" Brazilian musicians such as Mendes, Claudio Roditi and Ivan Lins.

Here's a list of a dozen Brazilian CDs (a woefully incomplete sampling, but all good stuff) that should help you get into the Brazilian swing of things until you, too, have a chance to go to Brazil and your life can begin.

1. "Parabolic," Gilberto Gil. Musically and lyrically audacious, high-energy Brazilian pop from the guy who is now Brazil's official minister of culture.

2. "Live in Montreux," Joao Gilberto. Just the voice and the guitar (and a crowd that roars in between the master's quiet songs). Plenty of Jobim tunes.

3. "Ouro Negro," Moacir Santos. For hardcore jazz fans. This guy is like the Duke Ellington of Brazil, and the little big band of musicians who pay tribute to him on this recent double CD are supernatural.

4. "In Tempo," Sadao Watanabe. Fans of contemporary or "smooth" jazz should dig this collaboration between the Japanese alto saxophonist and one of Brazil's great pianist/arrangers, Cesar Camargo Mariano.

5. "Brasileiro," Sergio Mendes. Arranger/keyboardist who once led Brasil '66 surveys a surprisingly large swath of his country's music on one CD.

6. "Getz/Gilberto," Stan Getz, Joao and Astrud Gilberto, Antonio Carlos Jobim and the hit version of "Girl From Ipanema."

7. "Clube da Esquina," Milton Nascimento. This 1972 double album, now on a single CD, could be described as a sort of South American "Sgt. Pepper" in its ambition to use rock, jazz, classical and the music of Nascimento's home state of Minas Gerais to create a work of art.

8. "Djavan ao vivo," Djavan. A double CD of hits by this hugely popular singer-composer. Sophisticated, funky, irresistible.

9. "Personalidade," Elis Regina. One of Brazil's greatest singers. Includes a classic version of Jobim's "Waters of March."

10. "The Brasil Project," Toots Thielemans. The unmatched Belgian harmonica player joins an all-star cast of Brazilians, including Dori Caymmi, Edu Lobo and Joao Bosco.

11. "Brazil Classics 2, O Samba." A compilation of top samba stars including Martino da Vila, Clara Nunes and Zeco Pagadinho.

12. "Brazil Classics 3, Forro etc." Compilation of the accordion-driven dance music of northeastern Brazil. Luiz Gonzaga, in his bandit sombrero, rules.