The bandleader and musician, who died on (05 September 2024) at 83, was a bridge from Brazilian music to the world — and back.
[New York Times]
Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 was the lineup that would bring Mendes hits through the 1960s, with women's voices carried by breezy Brazilian rhythms.
The band's international breakthrough featured the irresistible melody of the Ben Jor song “Mas Que Nada.”
The song's lyrics, in Portuguese, praise the deep Afro-Brazilian tradition of samba.
But Mendes's finger-snapping version, with Lani Hall's lead vocals, also uses thick, bluesy piano chords to add a touch of Nuyorican boogaloo.
He remade the song repeatedly through the decades — all the way up to an EDM update this year — but his first one endures.
