Guilherme Franco (November 25, 1946 – November 12, 2016, in São Paulo, Brazil) was a percussionist in the jazz and world fusion music genres.
Franco performed on the albums of many notable jazz musicians such as McCoy Tyner, Lonnie Liston Smith, Don Pullen and Woody Shaw.
In 1981 he started a samba school in New York City and a power samba group called "Pe De Boi" (a Brazilian slang term for a good musician, literally meaning "foot of the bull").
[citation needed] Franco suffered a stroke in March 2015 and was cared for at the Hospital Arnaldo Pezzuti Cavalcanti in Mogi das Cruzes, São Paulo where he died in November 2016.
[citation needed] In 1998 he recorded the solo album Capoeira: Legendary Music of Brazil, on the Lyrichord record label, on which album he plays most of the instruments.