They Shot the Piano Player: A Graphic Novel

A New York music journalist goes on a quest to uncover the truth behind the mysterious disappearance of the young Brazilian piano virtuoso (and pioneer of samba-jazz), Tenório Jr.

An investigation and celebration of the origins of the world-renowned Latino musical samba-jazz movement Bossa Nova, They Shot The Piano Player captures a fleeting time bursting with creative freedom at a turning-point in Latin American history in the ’60s and ’70s, before the continent was riven by totalitarian regimes. Francisco Tenório Cerqueira Júnior, born in Rio de Janeiro, was one of the most recognized musicians of the samba-jazz movement. At 3 a.m. on March 18, 1976, after giving a concert at the Gran Rex in Buenos Aires, the 34-year-old pianist went out to get some cigarettes. He was never seen again. What happened that night? This is the question that moves the narrator of this documentary graphic novel to initiate an investigation into the fateful events that led to the death of a musician destined to change the course of Brazilian music forever.

Javier Mariscal is a multi-disciplinary artist and designer. After winning instant acclaim in 1979 for the bar-sky-wave logo for his adoptive city of Barcelona, he went on to create Cobi (the mascot of the city’s 1992 Olympics) and Twipsy, a character designed for the Hanover 2000 Expo that later featured in an animated TV series. Born in Valencia, he opened Estudio Mariscal in Barcelona in 1989, and was the subject of a major retrospective at London’s Design Museum in 2009. An exhibition of his work opened in Barcelona in September 2010 at the Pedrera, one of Gaudí’s most famous buildings. Fernando Trueba is a multi-award-winning writer, director, and producer, with a career spanning more than three decades in film, television, documentaries, theatre, and music. His many directing credits include Belle Époque (1992), La niña de tus ojos (1998), and Calle 54 (2000), a Latin-jazz documentary that prompted his enduring collaboration and friendship with Javier Mariscal.