Francisco Tenório Júnior

Born and raised in the neighborhood of Laranjeiras, in Rio de Janeiro, he was considered one of the most important musicians of bossa nova. He used to be presented in the Lane in Rio de Janeiro. Simultaneously with his development as a musician Tenório Jr. was studying medicine at the National School of Medicine, and quickly became in the 1970s one of the Brazilian professionals most sought after by artists. He used to perform at Beco das Garrafas (Alley of the Bottles), a place in Copacabana famous for being one of the redoubts in which bossa nova emerged.

His piano can be heard on anthological albums of Brazilian music such as Arte Maior (1963) by Leny Andrade (with the "Tenório Jr. Trio"), É Samba Novo (1964) by Edson Machado, O LP(1964) by Os Cobras, Vagamente (1964) by Wanda Sá and Desenhos (1966) by Vitor Assis Brasil.

In 1976, after a show in Buenos Aires, in which he accompanied with a great performance the famous musicians Vinicius de Moraes and Toquinho, Tenorio Junior (or Tenorinho, as he was popularly known in Brazil) disappeared without a trace. At first, it was not known whether he was in any prison or if he died in Argentina. At the time several versions ran, as quoted by singer Elis Regina in an interview to Folha de S. Paulo, on 3 June 1979. According to Elis Regina, Tenorinho had been seen in 1977 in a prison La Plata city.

Ten years after his disappearance, Claudio Vallejos, a former corporal and member of the Naval Information Service, the Secret Service of the Argentine Navy, revealed to the defunct magazine "Lord" (n° 270, May 1986), that Tenorio Jr. had been approached on the street by a military patrol and arrested. According to Vallejos, Brazilian authorities had been informed of the kidnapping and death of Tenorio Junior. Vallejos said Tenorio was imprisoned in the ESMA (Navy Mechanics School); a notorious clandestine center and apparatus of repression of the Argentine Navy that existed between 1976 and 1979 and, according to reports and complaints, was the scene of almost five thousand murders.

In the book Operación Condor: Pacto Criminal (Operation Condor: Criminal Pact), launched in Mexico in 2001, the journalist Stella Calloni says Tenorio Jr. was tortured by Brazilian and Argentine officials, including Brazilian Army major Souza Vieira Baptista. The story of Calloni converges with the interview Claudio Vallejos published in the journal Lord, in which the former Argentine military claimed that agents SNI had been present during the execution of Tenorio Jr, which occurred nine days after his arrest. The executor could have been none other than the infamous Alfredo Astiz, a frigate former captain of the Argentine Navy also implicated in the murder and forced disappearance of dozens of people and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2011 for Crimes against humanity, carried on by Astiz during Argentina's last military dictatorship.

Francisco Tenorio Jr. was 34 years old. He left four children and his wife, Carmen Cerqueira Magalhaes, who was pregnant at the time of his disappearance. His fifth child was born one month after his disappearance.

The National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons (CONADEP), an Argentine organization created by President Raúl Alfonsín on 15 December 1983 (shortly after the return of democracy) to investigate the fate of the desaparecidos (victims of forced disappearance) and other human rights violations during the military dictatorship confirmed in its famous document Nunca Más (Never Again) - which details the research of the investigation commission with a complete summary and was published as an official report in Spanish; delivered to Alfonsín on 20 September 1984 - that Tenorio's death took place in March 1976 in Buenos Aires.

Soon after the disappearance of Tenorio Jr., the filmmaker Rogerio Lima produced the short film Balada para Tenorio (A ballad for Tenorio), which chronicled the disappearance of Tenorio Jr. and interviews his family and friends.

In 1986, when former Argentine military man Claudio Vallejos came to Brazil and gave a revealing interview with Lord, the production house VIDECOM of São Paulo, along with Rogério Lima, managed to record his testimony, which was used as the basis for the documentary about Tenorio Jr., which chronicles the tragedy that befell on the musician. Vallejos was arrested as determined by the then Minister of Justice, Paulo Brossard, days after the publication of the interview. In August 1987, in a new interview with Lord, the former agent said he suffered during his brief imprisonment, threats of men in federal police and received the recommendation not to insist on references to the omission of the Brazilian embassy and the involvement of agents SNI in the death of Tenorio. The documentary had its premiere at the 1986 Film and Video Festival of Rio de Janeiro. In the same week, Claudio Vallejos was expelled from Brazil, after three months in prison, without having been subjected to a process. In 1996, the documentary was updated with unpublished archive images, reissued and presented by TV Cultura of São Paulo. In the film, the lawyer Luis Eduardo Greenhalgh stated he believes that Tenorio Junior died in prison and that he had been arrested by mistake.

According to people close to the pianist, Tenorio, although being the son of a military man, had never expressed political and ideological preferences. In an interview in 2003, Toquinho said that Tenorio physical appearance may have contributed to his arrest: "Tenorio was of a unique kind, very tall, with beard, long hair, wore a long cloak, was mistaken for someone else".

The Spanish filmmaker Fernando Trueba has plans to carry out another documentary feature film about the disappearance of the Brazilian pianist.

Claudio Vallejos returned to Brazil (supposedly around 2002) and settled in the region Chapecó in Santa Catarina. He was arrested in 2010 for embezzlement and forgery. Released some time later, he was again arrested for larceny in January 2012. His arrest had been requested to Interpol by the Argentine federal prosecutor who handles the criminal proceedings linked to Operation Condor, the military-political alliance between the dictatorships of Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay in the 1970s and 1980s, which was sponsored by the United States government. When the identity of Vallejos was confirmed, the prosecutor petitioned the Brazilian government for his extradition to Argentina. On 27 March 2013, Vallejos was delivered by Federal Police to Argentine police at the airport in Florianópolis.

• Francisco Tenório Júnior discography at Discogs