Sergio Mendes, ambassador of Brazilian music and inventor of what others believed they had invented, has died

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The Death of pianist, arranger and composer Sergio Mendeswhich took place on Thursday in Los Angeles, inevitably leads one to think that if Brazilian music was so successful outside its cultural and political territory, even with the language limitations that this entails, it was thanks to the work of this man who became a bastion and ambassador.

Mendes, who passed away at the age of 83, is an inescapable figure of that Brazil outside of Brazil. And he will continue to be so due to the dimension of his popularity, which was not carved out by an image or a good voice. It was enough to be seated at the piano to achieve, from there, the expansion he generated by making music from his country. In that sense, that boy from Niterói was Brazilian until the last day, although he arrived in the United States in the early sixties, and there he stayed.

Sergio Mendes gave samba and bossa nova a boost outside his countryOmar Vega – Invision

He turned many things he touched into gold. In the early sixties, Jorge Ben wrote a song called “Mas que nada”, which was one of the gems of his first album, although it did not achieve the same success that it later had in the hands of Mendes. “When ‘Más que nada’ arrived in the United States, in 1966 – Mendes said in a recent interview with the newspaper The Globe-, two months later it was the biggest hit in Brazil too. It’s not that I was looking for success in the United States, Brazil, Japan or the Philippines. That’s how music is.” It’s that simple, like those simple things that are difficult to explain, but open a great door to fame for some musicians. That version that could be seen on television programs, where Sergio appeared at the front of his group Brasil 66, was the great key to success.

Brasil 66 was a sextet of piano, double bass, drums, percussion and two voices. One of the singers was Lani Hall, the other, Gracinha Leporace, who was his wife until Mendes’ last day. Since his Covid-19 infection, the musician had been experiencing health problems that worsened over time and had no return. According to a statement from his representative, “his wife and musical partner for the past 54 years, Gracinha Leporace Mendes, was by his side, as were his beloved children. Mendes last performed in November 2023 in sold-out and enthusiastic venues in Paris, London and Barcelona.”

Abandoned by his family, he drew his own destiny or was guided by intuition to see what destiny had in store for him. He began to attract attention as a pianist and met those who later became great references in Brazilian music, such as Tom Jobim, Vinicius de Moraes y Baden-Powellat Beco das Garrafas, a music venue in Copacabana. And already part of that scene, he was present, at the young age of 21, at that milestone of Brazilian music that was the landing, on November 21, 1961, at Carnegie Hall in New York. He was one of the musicians at that famous concert, where he accompanied Carlos Lyra, João Gilberto, Tom Jobim and Milton Banana. There he realized that the terrain was propitious for developing ideas and for using the great country of the North as an amplifier for his inventions.

Sergio Mendes and Tom Jobim, on the streets of New York

After several visits, he ended up settling down, but on the West Coast, where he lived until his last day. His credentials include merits valued with names and numbers. He played and recorded with celebrities such as Cannonball Adderley and Herbie Mann. Already becoming the main exponent of samba-jazz, he allied himself artistically with consecrated figures such as Herb Alpert and earned the appreciation of other celebrities, such as Frank Sinatra. Statistics say that he was the Brazilian with the most recordings that entered the Top 100 of the American charts (there were 14 in total, since his version of “Más que nada”, which reached number 47, in 1966). In 2012 he was nominated for an Oscar in the category of best original song as co-author of the song “Real in Rio”, from the animated film Río.

And was he the man who invented what others thought they had invented? Because while at the end of the last century a movement began to develop that covered music from various genres in a “hotel” atmosphere, Sergio, already in the sixties and seventies, used his creativity to cover bossa or samba, the music of the Beatles or that “The look of love” by Burt Bacharach. It was Paul McCartney himself who gave him the thumbs up after hearing the version he had made of “Fool On The Hill” with Brasil 66.

Only several decades later did the custom of recreating repertoires that ended up in albums with titles like: Bossa & Lounge, Bossa & Beatles or Bossa & Roll become widespread. Mendes had already done it long before. Even famous artists, including Rita Lee, tried these experiments, having the work of the boy from Niterói as a precedent.

With good ideas as a producer, he knew how to find possibilities in the pop universe. The version of “Mas que nada”, which he recorded with Black Eyed Peas, in 2006, is not better than the original by Jorge Ben or the one Mendes himself had made four decades earlier, but it gave the song a new impetus and made it available to new generations. Perhaps, in the same way, we could see what he had done with the rhythms of bossa nova and samba.

Without leaving the formality of the tuxedo (as can be seen in many television recordings), he achieved a mixture between the rhythm of Brazil, that jazz that he loved with great orchestral sections, and a certain “relaxed” attitude, which was the one that rock and beat music began to impose in the sixties. His good eye and his good ear will always be remembered.

Conocé The Trust Project