Mr. Donato began leading his own groups in the early 1950s, while also working as a sideman. He played the accordion on Luiz Bonfá’s first album, released in 1955, as part of a studio band that also included Antonio Carlos Jobim. Mr. Jobim produced Mr. Donato’s debut album, “Chá Dançante” (1956), and Mr. Donato wrote songs with João Gilberto, including “Minha Saudade”, which became a Brazilian standard.
But by the late 1950s, Mr. Donato’s preferred style had become so complex that audiences complained they couldn’t dance to it, and he was struggling to find work in Brazil. He accepted a job supporting Carmen Miranda at a Lake Tahoe resort and moved to the United States.
At the beginning of the sixties he was welcomed by Latin and jazz musicians. He recorded with Cal Tjader, Astrud Gilberto, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaría and Eddie Palmieri. (He played the trombone in Mr. Palmieri’s La Perfecta, a brassy salsa band that Mr. Palmieri called a “trombanga.”)
The vibraphonist Dave Pike recorded an entire album of compositions by Mr. Donato in 1962, “Bossa Nova Carnival”, and the saxophonist Bud Shank put Mr. Donato in charge of his 1965 album, “Bud Shank & His Brazilian Friends”. “This is João Donato’s baby,” Mr. Shank wrote in the liner notes. “I handed over all the problems to him and I just relax and play.”
On his own albums for American labels, Mr. Donato from jazz and Caribbean influences as well as from Brazilian influences. His pivotal 1970 album, “A Bad Donato,” was a radical turn toward funk, fusing Brazilian-rooted melodies and rhythms with electric keyboards and wah-wah guitars. The keyboardist and arranger Eumir Deodato, who with Mr. Donato worked on that album had a worldwide Brazilian funk hit with his version of “Also Sprach Zarathustra (2001).”
Mr. Donato returned to Brazil in 1973. There, a friend persuaded him to record songs with lyrics instead of just instrumentals, including his own humble but serious vocals. His melodic, easygoing 1973 album, “Quem É Quem”, was not an instant hit, but was critically acclaimed over the years; in 2007, Brazilian Rolling Stone listed it among the 100 best Brazilian albums.