He blended bossa with jazz and pop, played at the White House for Nixon and Reagan, and won over a new audience later in life
Brazil ian musician Sérgio Mendes: his version of Jorge Ben's Mas Que Nada, released in 1966, became the first song in Portuguese to hit the Top 5. File photograph: AP Photo/Chris PizzelloSérgio Mendes was one of the most successful Brazil ian artists of all time. A pianist, songwriter, arranger and bandleader, he enjoyed a lengthy career that began in the bossa nova boom of the early 1960s and continued for six decades – long after the bossa craze was over.
When the American jazz stars Charlie Byrd and Herbie Mann visited Rio in 1961 to check out this new music, Mendes was one of those with whom they played. And when Brazil’s bossa heroes were invited to Carnegie Hall, New York, in November 1962 to collaborate with Byrd and other American jazz musicians, Mendes was included. The visit transformed his career.
Always retaining his trademark sound of two women singing together in the band, he notched up a further string of hits with Brazilian-influenced covers, including The Beatles’ Fool on the Hill, Simon & Garfunkel’s Scarborough Fair and Dusty Springfield’s The Look of Love. In 1967 he toured for the first time with Frank Sinatra, and in 1968 played his first concerts in Japan, where he became extremely popular, returning over 30 times.
Following its release, Mendes played a show at the Barbican in London, at which he switched from his 60s hits to breezy easy listening, and he ended by performing the hip-hop version of Mas Que Nada twice. His wife, Gracinha Leporace, was one of the two women singers.
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