By Evelyn Rosenthal

Sérgio Mendes, the man who ignited my own love affair with Brazilian music, has passed, at the age of 83, from complications of long Covid.

The late Sérgio Mendes — no matter what he was mixing into the stew, the result was always recognizably Sérgio. Photo: Facebook

A few weeks ago I was taken aback by a post on the Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 fan page on Facebook reporting the death of the great L.A.-based Brazilian pianist, composer, arranger, and producer who did so much to spread his country’s music to the US and around the world. It turned out to be a hoax. So when I saw a similar post in the group today, I was suspicious. A quick search revealed that he was being described in the past tense on his Wikipedia page. And then posts by friends and news outlets confirmed it — the guy who ignited my own love affair with Brazilian music had indeed passed, at the age of 83, from complications of long Covid.

Too young, for someone who had been touring as late as November 2023, and whose albums and shows in recent years were as full of energy and impeccable musicianship as any from his long career. Starting out in the 1950s as a swinging, jazz-enamored pianist mentored by Antônio Carlos Jobim, Mendes made his way to the States via the 1962 Carnegie Hall bossa nova concert that was the Brazilian equivalent of the Beatles on Ed Sullivan — maybe not the earth-shaking invasion of the Brits, but definitely a significant musical tremor that spread the seductive rhythms and harmonies of bossa nova and samba through the worlds of jazz and popular music. Pretty soon everyone had heard of Mendes; hits like “Mas que nada,” “The Look of Love,” and a kicky cover of the aforementioned Beatles’ “The Fool on the Hill” laid the foundation for a style that fused Brazilian music, jazz, and pop.

How to explain his longevity in the music business? Wikipedia claims he had some 55 releases (albums and singles), recording in every decade from 1961 to 2020. In each of those decades he mined the genres we were listening to — especially R&B and funk – and put his Sérgio spin on them. He championed the best of Brazil’s songwriters and ours, from Stevie Wonder, will.i.am., Paul Simon, and Edgar Winter (check out Winter’s “Tell Me in a Whisper” on the album Homecooking [1976]) to Edu Lobo, Jorge Ben Jor, Antonio Adolfo, João Donato, and Dori Caymmi, in the early years, and, later, Carlinhos Brown, Guinga, Ivan Lins, Milton Nascimento, and Djavan, among many others. No matter what he was mixing into the stew, the result was always recognizably Sérgio. And he never lost his signature two-female-singer lineup, which featured many terrific voices over the years, among them Lani Hall in the late ’60s and, later, his wonderfully talented wife, Gracinha Leporace.

And now, here’s where it gets personal. In addition to writing for Arts Fuse, I’m also a singer. One of my favorite albums in my parents’ record collection was the 1968 classic Look Around. I loved every song on that album, and took it with me when I went to college (yes, I still have it). Some of the songs were in English, some in Portuguese, some in both, and at the time I didn’t really pay attention to the composer credits. But later, when exposure to the great Milton Nascimento via Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer reintroduced me to Brazilian music and I started listening to the WERS (Emerson College) radio show “Coração Brasileiro,” I realized I knew many of the songs I was hearing, and that I’d been listening to some of those songwriters for years, via Sérgio Mendes. Long story short: I added Brazilian tunes to my jazz repertoire, including “Mas que nada,” and studied Portuguese, so I could sing the original lyrics. Then in 2010 I got together with fellow Sérgio-fan musicians and started the tribute band To Sérgio with Love to play the songs and arrangments we all loved so much. It only lasted a couple of years, but it was one of the most fun, popular, and satisfying projects in my musical life.

On the web page for his 2020 album In the Key of Joy, Sérgio says this: “I’ve been very blessed to have had such a long career.… There’s an English word that I love and that I use a lot, which is ‘serendipity.’ I’ve been fortunate to have so many beautiful encounters in my life.” I owe a lot to Sérgio Mendes for my own serendipitous encounter with his music all those years ago. And I’m betting that most non-Brazilians who have fallen hard for Brazilian music know, and will remember, his name and his work.

More

My Sérgio Mendes Top Five

1. Look Around (1968) – my madeleine; “The Look of Love,” “Like a Lover” https://www.amazon.com/Look-Around-Sergio-Mendes-Brasil/dp/B00004S95S
2. Brasileiro (1992) – 1993 Grammy for Best World Music Album; his best, I think https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brasileiro
3. Horizonte Aberto (1979) – A Brazilian release, all Brazilian tunes https://www.amazon.com/Horizonte-Aberto-Sergio-Mendes/dp/B01ECOMU4I
4. Fool on the Hill (1968) – some great Edu Lobo tunes, and that Beatles number https://www.amazon.com/Fool-Remastered-Sergio-Mendes-Brasil/dp/B0002LGWSQ
5. Oceano (1996) – songs by Guinga, Caetano Veloso, Djavan, Ivan Lins, Hermeto Pascoal https://www.amazon.com/Oceano-Sergio-Mendes/dp/B00000474C

A Couple of Reviews

Review of 2014 album Encanto

Review of 2019 “60 Years of Bossa Nova” show, Sérgio Mendes and Bebel Gilberto

Evelyn Rosenthal is a singer specializing in jazz and Brazilian music, a freelance editor, and the former editor in chief and head of publications at the Harvard Art Museums. She writes about musical theater and music for the Arts Fuse.