Brazilian bossa nova musician Sérgio Mendes, 83, died in Los Angeles on Sept. 6. He and his band Brasil ’66 became huge hits with the mambo/bossa nova/Calypso craze of the 1950s/60s, releasing 55 albums and continuing to perform long after the musical fad had passed. Born in Rio de Janeiro, Mendes was trained as a classical pianist, but his love of jazz led him to nightclub performing; by 1961 he was touring the US, even playing Carnegie Hall. Brasil ’66 was formed by Atlantic Records and Herb Alpert. Their cover of “The Look of Love” shot to the top of the charts, and Mendes became one of the era’s biggest stars, a romantic and melodic island in the rock era. Mendes credited “Take Five” by the Dave Brubeck Quartet with his musical awakening: “When I was about 14, one of my friends called me to his house and said, ‘You have to listen to this!’ It was such a wonderful surprise to me, because that was the first time that I’d ever heard jazz. I was really taken by the uniqueness of that particular sound. Following that experience, me and my friends got together once a week and listened to other jazz records. It was very hard in those days to get hold of records from the United States because they didn’t sell them in Brazil, so when we finally got the opportunity to listen to them, it was really an adventure.”
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