Charlie Byrd had kept a low profile before his 1962 Jazz Samba album with Stan Getz, but when his big chance came along the Virginian guitarist seized it with both hands. Later orchestral albums like these did well for him in the easy-listening market without stopping any traffic on the jazz highway. Byrd claimed to have studied with the great classical guitarist Andrés Segovia but his jazz technique was pretty rudimentary. He fitted chords to melody capably but rarely with a jazz sensibility, and his notorious solo on ‘Desafinado’ with Getz was the best example of a musician stepping off a cliff until pianist Tommy Flanagan suffered similar vertigo during two (much harder) choruses of his solo on the original version of ‘Giant Steps’ with John Coltrane.

Of the two albums packaged here (beneath a sexy cover shot ideal for Selwyn Harris's Art Failure column), Brazilian Byrd wears much better than Hollywood Byrd, a collection of film-soundtrack themes. His nylon-string acoustic technique is made to measure for the gentler tempos and more mellifluous chord-shapes of the bossa-nova classics. “Doctors can always find people who need them,” he once said, “but musicians have to find a way to reach people, spiritually or however you can.” He carved out a remarkably long career with that pragmatic philosophy, and by realising that many listeners basically just want to hear the tune.