They Shot the Piano Player

Trueba and Mariscal (Chico and Rita) reunite for this well-researched yet stiff graphic narrative about a Brazilian jazz musician’s 1976 disappearance. In the framing device, music journalist Jeff Harris heads to Brazil in 2007 to conduct a series of interviews about the Rio de Janeiro jazz scene. He’s particularly enamored of Francisco Tenório Júnior, a pianist instrumental to the 1960s bossa nova sound—and curious why he stopped recording so early in his career. Conversations with jazz legends reveal a disturbing story: Tenório was a victim of a violent military coup in Argentina. The pianist was taken by police in Buenos Aires, then tortured and killed by the military. Trueba’s retelling of Harris’s journey through jazz history is part murder mystery, part who’s-who of the bossa nova scene, and in detailing the violent backdrop of this musical milieu, Trueba shines a light on the intersections of Latin American politics and culture. While Mariscal’s portraits capture a diverse array of jazz musicians, they’re rigidly rendered in an uncanny digital style that doesn’t quite do justice to the vibrancy of the period. Despite those flaws, it’s an intriguing window onto a forgotten chapter of Latin jazz history . (Dec.)