Sérgio Mendes speaks on the occasion “Reel To Reel: Sérgio Mendes — In The Key Of Pleasure” on the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles on March 11, 2020. Rebecca Sapp/Getty Photographs for The Recording Academy disguise caption
toggle caption
Rebecca Sapp/Getty Photographs for The Recording Academy
Sérgio Mendes, a musician who emerged with Brazil’s bossa nova motion within the Sixties and have become an envoy for that nation’s music all over the world, died Thursday in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles. In keeping with his household, the 83-year-old had been affected by lengthy COVID in latest months.
A composer, pianist, producer and singer, Mendes had a prolific profession spanning over 60 years, collaborating with everybody from Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire to the Black Eyed Peas. In a 2020 interview with NPR, he stated these “unbelievable encounters” with musical friends started after his first go to to america, in 1962, when he carried out alongside different bossa nova greats in a historic live performance at Carnegie Corridor. After that occasion, he was surprised to obtain an invite from Cannonball Adderley to work on his album.
“I’ve been very lucky to have such experiences, as a result of that has enriched my life,” Mendes instructed Weekend Version Sunday. “Working with totally different individuals from totally different nations, from totally different cultures, I believe it simply helps you develop and be taught new issues. … I like that since you don’t program that. It’s in regards to the magical encounter.”
In his native Brazil and past, artists and celebrities have been paying tribute to Mendes on social media. The Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am shared an image of him and Mendes strolling collectively, calling theirs “a timeless friendship.” Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento recalled how a lot enjoyable they’d when Mendes attended his live performance in Los Angeles in 2022: “We had a few years of friendship, partnership and music, and he might be with me eternally in my coronary heart.” Herb Alpert, who produced Mendes’ first worldwide albums, mourned the lack of his “brother from one other nation,” saying: “He was a real buddy and intensely gifted musician who introduced Brazilian music in all its iterations to the whole world with magnificence and pleasure.”
Mendes was born within the metropolis of Niterói, in Rio de Janeiro state. When the army dictatorship started in Brazil in 1964, he determined to flee and settle in america — a choice that might change his type as nicely, giving it a world twist. He invited two American singers to hitch the band he had shaped, renaming it Brasil ’66. Their first report, helmed by Alpert, produced “Mas Que Nada,” a contemporary Brazilian basic and Mendes’ best-known music (although it was initially composerd by one other Brazilian icon, Jorge Ben Jor). In 2006, a brand new model of the music recorded by The Black Eyed Peas in collaboration with Mendes revived the hit — and Mendes’ fame — for brand spanking new generations.
Mendes held his final performances final 12 months, staging sold-out concert events in Paris, London and Barcelona. In a press release, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva praised Mendes’ profession achievements, which embrace touchdown essentially the most songs within the US High 100 of any Brazilian artist — 14 in whole — and receiving a Grammy for the album Brasileiro in 1992. Wrote Lula, “Sérgio Mendes was one of many biggest exponents and promoters of our music and tradition on the planet.”
