Sérgio Mendes, the Brazilian bossa nova impresario and pianist who helped popularize the style within the ‘60s and toured with Herb Alpert and Frank Sinatra, has died.
The recording artist died “peacefully” Thursday in Los Angeles, together with his spouse Gracinha Leporace Mendes and their youngsters by his aspect, his household confirmed in an announcement shared with The Occasions. He was 83.
The assertion didn’t reveal a explanation for loss of life however stated the singer’s well being “had been challenged by the consequences of long run COVID.” Mendes “leaves us with an unimaginable musical legacy from greater than six many years of a novel sound,” the household stated.
Mendes discovered international acclaim as a solo artist, bandmember in teams like Brasil ’66 and as a collaborator throughout style.
Born in 1941 in Niterói, close to Rio de Janeiro, he grew to become a preferred pianist within the nightclubs on Rio’s Beco das Garrafas (Bottles Alley), a cluster of venues the place artists carried out the rising style of bossa nova whereas neighbors threw bottles at rowdy partygoers. Bossa Nova blended Brazilian samba rhythms with American jazz. Alongside friends like composer Antônio Carlos Jobim, singer-guitarist João Gilberto, lyricist Vinícius de Moraes and guitarist Roberto Menescal, the music captured the town’s sensuous seashore tradition and its younger and hopeful temper within the late 1950’s and early ‘60s, a sound lovingly evoked within the 1959 movie “Black Orpheus.”
Mendes minimize his first solo album “Dance Moderno” in 1961, a group of jazz covers by Duke Ellington and Cole Porter alongside Brazilian compositions by Jobim and Gilberto. He shortly started touring within the U.S., and carried out at a legendary 1962 live performance at New York’s Carnegie Corridor that showcased bossa nova to novice American audiences. That present helped make the motion a sensation worldwide, and hits like Gilberto and Stan Getz’s “The Lady From Ipanema” in 1964 would quickly turn out to be jazz and pop staples.
Mendes carried out with jazz acts like Cannonball Adderly (on 1963’s “Cannonball’s Bossa Nova”) and flautist Herbie Mann, and signed with Atlantic underneath Nesuhi Ertegun, label head Ahmet’s brother.
With 1964’s navy coup in Brazil, nevertheless, the nation’s future darkened. Mendes moved to L.A. that yr, taking part in residencies at jazz golf equipment like Hollywood’s Shelly’s Manne-Gap.
“I instantly preferred it,” Mendes advised the Occasions in a 2021 interview. “I preferred it due to the local weather. It was a lot much less demanding than New York; it was relaxed. It had extra to do with me…Issues occur actually spontaneously right here. All of that has to do with Hollywood, with the music trade, and the fantastic place that’s Los Angeles”
He minimize major-label albums together with his group Sergio Mendes & Brasil ‘65, although none offered particularly nicely. On the suggestion of A&M information producer Richard Adler, and backed by the label’s Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, Mendes introduced on feminine vocalists to carry out in English and Portuguese. This new incarnation of his band, Brasil ‘66, had successful with “Mas Que Nada” by songwriter Jorge Ben Jor, and helped deliver Brazilian music to the mainstream within the U.S. even with Portuguese lyrics. “Individuals didn’t know what it meant, and it didn’t matter,” Mendes recalled. “It simply made individuals really feel good.”.) The track hit no. 47 on the Scorching 100 and the album, “Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66” went platinum. Mendes would later marry Brasil ’66 vocalist Lani Corridor.
The band’s 1967 album “Look Round” set the favored system of mixing authentic work with bossa nova covers of English-language songs, together with the Beatles’ “With a Little Assist From My Mates” and “The Look of Love,” penned by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, which Mendes carried out on the Oscars in 1968. After a near-total lineup change, Mendes and Brasil ‘66’s fourth LP, “Idiot on the Hill,” yielded two high 10 singles with covers of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Honest” and the Beatles’ title monitor (Mendes stated Paul McCartney advised him it was his favourite cowl model).
He maintained a prolific output within the Seventies, releasing greater than an album a yr with new lead vocalist Gracinha Leporace, whom he would later marry, and a reconfigured band referred to as Brasil ’77 performing songs by Leon Russell and Stevie Marvel (whom Mendes wrote Portuguese lyrics for on “Chook of Magnificence”). 1983’s self-titled album grew to become a mid-career hit, yielding a Scorching 100 No. 4 single with the Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil-penned “By no means Gonna Let You Go,” and who additionally wrote Mendes’ 1984’s single “Olympia” for the 1984 L.A. Olympics.
In 1993, Mendes gained his solely Grammy with “Brasileiro,” which gained for world music album, and featured the hit single “Magalenha,” written by Carlinhos Brown. After the lounge-music and neo-soul waves of the late ‘90s and early 2000’s, which introduced renewed curiosity to his Brasil ’66 catalog, Mendes teamed up with Black Eyed Peas founder will.i.am for 2006’s “Timeless,” which featured vocals type up to date soul singers like Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, india.arie, John Legend, Stevie Marvel and Justin Timberlake.
“I like ‘disruption,’ ?” Mendes stated in an interview. “Making an album with Cannonball was, for me, just a little disruption, artistically talking. It’s the identical sort of expertise working with Will.”
Mendes gained two Latin Grammys and earned an Oscar nomination in 2012 for theme track “Actual In Rio,” for the animated movie “Rio,” and was the topic of a loving 2020 documentary “Sérgio Mendes: Within the Key of Pleasure,” the place stars like Legend and Quincy Jones lauded his contributions to Latin and widespread music alike. His final album, “Within the Key of Pleasure,” was launched the identical yr.
He final carried out in November 2023 with reveals in Paris, London and Barcelona. In a tribute posted on-line, A&M label boss and jazz big Alpert wrote that “Sergio Mendes was my brother from one other nation…He was a real pal and very gifted musician who introduced Brazilian music in all its iterations to the complete world with magnificence and pleasure.”
Mendes is survived by Leporace, his widow, their two youngsters Tiago Mendes and Gustavo Mendes, and his three youngsters from his first marriage, Bernardo, Rodrigo and Isabella Mendes. “The household is processing this loss and extra particulars concerning funeral and memorial providers will probably be offered at a later date,” the household’s assertion stated.
It is a creating story.
