Sérgio Mendes

Reflections on a great musician

10 years apart - 2004 and 2014

Two shots with Sérgio 10 years apart - In 2004 with my wife Luzia and the late Samia Panni, and in 2014 with Sérgio and his wife, singer Gracinha Leporace

2024 is the year we said Adeus to Sérgio Mendes. So many people around the world have mentioned how he was the reason why they fell in love with the music of Brazil, and rightly so. He was a young pianist who took part in the birth of the samba-jazz wave in Rio, making some very interesting records, including this gem, produced by Tom Jobim in 1963:

I remember hearing this as a kid on the radio, and wondering how a piano could make those sounds…

Sergio was part of the legendary bossa nova concert at Carnegie Hall in 1962, and when he moved to the US a little later he knew how to take advantage of the great influence that music had on American jazz musicians, recording with Cannonball Adderley and Herbie Mann, and bringing with him great Brazilian players like guitarist Durval Ferreira, drummer Edison Machado and bassist Tião Neto.

The track below exemplifies Sérgio’s approach to the samba/jazz blend. It’s a composition by Durval Ferreira called Batida Diferente, featuring Cannonball Adderley on alto sax. Except that the melody is played by Paulo Moura on alto sax and Pedro Paulo on trumpet. You can clearly hear the difference in phrasing between the Brazilian players and Cannonball in his swinging interjections:

For me, growing up in Rio in the 1960s, Sérgio’s records were favorites at our teen parties, called Hi-fi. Someone would bring a portable record player, our parents (!) would provide Cuba Libre drinks (rum & coke) and we would dance to Mas Que Nada and other tracks. It’s interesting to note that while we knew the Brazilian versions of these tunes (Jorge Ben’s Samba Esquema Novo was a hit in 1963), there was a special allure when we heard Lani Hall and Janis Hansen singing with an English accent the Portuguese words. Of course, Sérgio made sure that the groove was never “americanized”, so his music could never be nicknamed gringo samba like so many others were. With a rotating cast of Brazilian musicians hand-picked for their grooveability and the double female vocals, Sérgio created a sound that crossed the world without damaging the Brazilian rhythmic DNA. He auditioned for several US labels without success, but when he played for Herb Alpert, the “A” in A&M Records, he used a clever trick. They played a medley of Tom Jobim and Newton Mendonça’s One Note Samba with Julius and Cissy Wechter’s Spanish Flea, which had been a huge hit for Herb’s Tijuana Brass band. That captivated his attention, got Brasil 66 a recording contract and the result is below: