Tom Zé

Tom Zé
Tom Zé in 2019
Background information
Birth nameAntônio José Santana Martins
Born (1936-10-11) 11 October 1936
Irará, Bahia, Brazil
OriginSão Paulo, Brazil
Genres
Occupations
  • Multi-instrumentalist
  • singer-songwriter
  • composer
Years active1960s–present
Labels
Websitehttp://www.tomze.com.br/

Antônio José Santana Martins (born 11 October 1936), known professionally as Tom Zé (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈtõ ˈzɛ]), Born in Irará, Bahia, is a Brazilian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer who was influential in the Tropicália movement of 1960s Brazil. After the peak of the Tropicália period, Zé went into relative obscurity: it was only in the 1990s, when musician and Luaka Bop label head David Byrne discovered Zé's 1975 album Estudando o Samba and then released reissues of his work, that Zé returned to performing and releasing new material.