Sergio Mendes, Grammy-winning Brazilian music legend, dies at 83

[FILE] Sergio Mendes speaks onstage at Reel To Reel: Sergio Mendes: In The Key Of Pleasure at The GRAMMY Museum on March 11, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. | Rebecca Sapp/Getty Pictures for The Recording Academy /AFP

RIO DE JANEIRO — Sergio Mendes, the celebrated Brazilian musician whose 1966 hit “Mas Que Nada” made him a world celebrity and helped launched an extended, Grammy-winning profession, has died after months battling the results of lengthy COVID. He was 83.

The demise Thursday of the Brazilian pianist, songwriter and arranger was confirmed in an announcement by his household.

“His spouse and musical accomplice for the previous 54 years, Gracinha Leporace Mendes, was by his facet, as had been his loving kids,” the assertion Friday mentioned. “Mendes final carried out in November 2023 to bought out and wildly enthusiastic homes in Paris, London and Barcelona.”

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Mendes was born in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro’s sister metropolis, and studied classical music at a conservatory earlier than becoming a member of jazz teams. Within the late Fifties and early Nineteen Sixties, he started taking part in Bossa Nova because the style was heating up in Rio’s nightclub scene with Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto and others.

In 1962, they traveled to New York for a Bossa Nova pageant at Carnegie Corridor. Through the journey, Cannonball Adderley invited Mendes to collaborate on the album “Cannonball Adderley and The Bossa Rio Sextet,” resulting in his first American file, “The Swinger from Rio,” after signing with Atlantic Information.

Two years later, Mendes moved to California and fashioned Brazil ’64, which developed into Brazil ’66 after he added two feminine vocalists. The group’s debut album, produced by Herb Alpert, featured “Mas Que Nada.” Sung fully in Portuguese, “Mas Que Nada” was a mid-tempo Samba quantity initially launched in 1963 by composer Jorge Ben Sor, and up to date three years later by Mendes, who had been taking part in the tune in golf equipment and gave it a jazzier, extra hard-hitting really feel.

“I put a band collectively known as Brasil ’66,” he informed The Guardian in 2019. “I’d at all times had instrumental teams, however once I added the 2 feminine singers – Lani Corridor and Bibi Vogel – it made a unique type of sound. We recorded the tune in Los Angeles, with me, the drums, bass and guitar all performing reside.”

Mendes’ model was a worldwide hit that helped perpetuate the Brazilian music increase of the Nineteen Sixties. In 2006, a contemporary model of the tune topped U.S. charts, as carried out by Black Eyed Peas. It was included in his album “Timeless,” produced by will.i.am and likewise that includes Stevie Surprise, Justin Timberlake and John Legend, amongst others.

“Sergio Mendes was my brother from one other nation,” trumpet participant Alpert wrote on Fb, together with a photograph from a long time in the past, sitting subsequent to Mendes on the piano. “He was a real buddy and very gifted musician who introduced Brazilian music in all its iterations to the whole world with magnificence.”

Mendes’ different hits had been an eclectic mix starting from covers of the Beatles’ “The Idiot on the Hill” and “With a Little Assist from My Buddies,” to his personal Brazilian chant, “Magalenha.” Mendes additionally composed the soundtrack for the movie “Pelé,” that includes saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, and even produced an album recorded by the good Brazilian soccer participant.

Mendes received the 1992 Grammy Award for Greatest World Music Album for “Brasileiro” and two Latin Grammy Awards. He additionally acquired an Oscar nomination in 2012 for Greatest Unique Track for “Actual in Rio,” from the animated movie “Rio.”

“Brazilian soul was there,” pianist, singer, and songwriter Marcos Valle informed GloboNews about Mendes’ music. Valle additionally famous that it was Mendes who helped open doorways for different Brazilian artists of his technology, together with himself, to achieve international audiences.

Mendes’ household mentioned they may present particulars concerning funeral and memorial companies at a later date.