Nicknamed Bola Sete (ball no 7) after the black ball of the billiard game by the members of a jazz band, Djalma de Andrade was born in Rio de Janeiro. He studied guitar at the Conservatory and started to play in samba groups. He was influenced by Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian and Barney Kessel, and by the style of the big bands of Dizzy Gillespie, Tommy Dorsey and Woody Herman, who were then touring South America.
After spending 4 years in Italy, he came back to Brazil and joined bands that traveled all over South America. In the footsteps of João Gilberto, he became one of the early promoters of bossa nova’s fingerstyle approach to the guitar. The manager of Sheraton Hotels offered him to tour the chain’s establishments in the US, where he met Dizzy Gillespie while playing in San Francisco. Gillespie introduced him to the Montery Jazz Festival’s audience in 1962, and he was a huge success. He then joined Vince Guaraldi’s trio, did several well-received recordings with it before starting his own trio with bassist Sebastião Neto and drummer Paulinho da Costa. The recording of their performance at the Monterey Festival in 1966 made it to the 20th position on Billboard’s Jazz chart.
In the 1970s, guitarist John Fahey invited Sete to record on his Takoma label and released Ocean, now considered by many as his greatest work.