Sérgio Mendes, Brazilian Bossa Nova Giant and Bandleader Dies at 83

Music

The Latin pop crossover star scored a series of international hits during a six-plus decade career, including “Mas Que Nada” and and swinging covers of songs by the Beatles.

Sergio Mendes performs at the Festival Of Arts And Pageant Of The Masters’ “A Night Of Magic” Fundraising Gala at Festival of Arts of Laguna Beach on August 26, 2023 in Laguna Beach, Calif.

Harmony Gerber/Getty Images

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Beloved bossa nova producer, composer, pianist and song interpreter Sérgio Mendes has died at 83. The legendary Brazilian superstar whose career spanned more than three dozen albums released across six decades helped craft the modern sound of crossover Brazilian pop thanks to such indelible hits as “Mas Que Nada” and “Magalenha.” He died at home in Los Angeles on Thursday (Sept. 5) surrounded by his family, according to a post by former label boss and friend Herb Alpert, who said that he’d been struggling with complications from long COVID.

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Beginning in his teens, Mendes — who was born on Feb. 11, 1941 in Rio de Janeiro — focused on dreams of becoming a classical pianist before being inspired by the then bubbling bossa nova explosion in the late 1950s that put a jazzy spin on the popular samba style. He honed his chops played clubs and performing with his bossa nova mentors, Antônio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto, before forming his first band, the Sexteto Bossa Rio, with whom he released his 1961 debut recording, Dance Moderno.

Mendes and his band quickly jumped from the clubs of Rio to New York, where Mendes played the first bossa nova festival at Carnegie Hall, followed by a pop-in at the iconic Birdland jazz club in 1962. That serendipitous visit led to an impromptu set with hard bop legend saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, resulting in 1963’s Cannonball’s Bossa Nova album, which featured a mix of jazz-tinged sambas with Mendes on piano. Mendes’ busy year also included contributions to American jazz flutist Herbie Mann’s 1963 albums, Do the Bossa Nova with Herbie Mann and its follow-up, Latin Fever.

After moving to the U.S. in 1964, Mendes formed the first in a series of eponymous bands, Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’65 and released The Swinger From Rio album, with contributions from Jobim and American jazz trumpeter Art Farmer, followed by a live album recorded with his Brasil ’65 crew, In Person at El Matador.

Bouncing between recordings for Atlantic Records and Capitol, Mendes released albums at a furious pace throughout the late 1960s, quickly cementing his status as one of the premier ambassadors for the swinging bossa nova sound. But it was when he signed to jazz great Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss’ A&M Records that Mendes’ album sales and chart success began to take off thanks to the renamed Brasil ’66’s debut single, the Jorge Ben-penned “Mas que Nada.”

The track with lead vocals from American jazz singer Lani Hall, appeared on the platinum-selling Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 and ran up to No. 47 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, helping cement its status as one of Mendes’ most beloved songs. The group, which continued to chart through the decade with groovy samba-inflected covers of pop songs, including their Grammy-nominated 1968 take on the Beatles’ “The Fool on the Hill,” as well as the Fab Four’s “Day Tripper” and boss nova’d versions of the Mamas & the Papas’ “Monday, Monday” and the Cole Porter standard “Night and Day.”

The group’s second A&M album, 1967’s Equinox, reached No. 3 on the Billboard Top Jazz Albums chart, followed a few months later by Look Around, which established a soon-to-be-familiar pattern of mixing bossa nova covers and originals with takes on popular English-language songs, including the Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends” and Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s Dusty Springfield hit, “The Look of Love”; Mendes’ version bested Springfield’s on the U.S. charts, going all the way to No. 4 on the Billboard pop tally. The song’s popularity was boosted when Mendes performed the Oscar-nominated song from the James Bond movie Casino Royale on the 1968 Academy Awards telecast.

In 1968, Mendes replaced the entire Brasil ’66 lineup — with the exception of singer Hall — on the group’s fourth LP, Fool on the Hill, which spawned two top 10-charting singles with the Beatles cover title track and a take on Simon & Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair.” Mendes released three more albums on A&M through the end of the 1960s — 1968’s Sergio Mendes’ Favorite Things and Crystal Illusions and 1969’s Ye-Me-Lê — which continued the winning formula of mixing bossa nova with laid back jazzy takes on Great American Songbook classics and American pop hits by the likes of Otis Redding, Glen Campbell and Bacharach/David for a signature adult contemporary sound calmly at odds with that decade’s rock and roll revolution on the charts.

His output continued apace in the 1970s, when he released more than a dozen albums, including 1970’s Stillness, which featured new lead vocalist (and later wife) Gracinha Leporace and Love Music, his third album with the reconfigured band — now known as Brasil ’77. The familiar formula continued apace, mixing songs by Jobim with covers of well-known tunes by Stevie Wonder and Leon Russell.

By the 1980s his release schedule began to slow, but Mendes’ popularity bumped up again with 1983’s self-titled album, which gave him his first top 40 LP in more than a decade, as well as his highest-charting single, the No. 4 Hot 100 adult contemporary hit written by Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil, “Never Gonna Let You Go.” Mendes scored his only Grammy win in 1992 with Brasileiro, which won the 1993 Grammy for best world music album.

In 2006 he teamed with Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am for Timeless, a No. 44 Billboard 200 LP which featured vocals from a raft of neo soul singers including Erykah Badu, Jill Scott and india.arie, as well as Q-Tip, John Legend, Stevie Wonder and Justin Timberlake.

Mendes continued to release music throughout the 2000s, including his final studio album, 2020’s In the Key of Joy. In addition to his Grammy award and two Latin Grammys, Mendes was nominated for an Oscar in 2012 for his theme song to the animated film Rio, “Real in Rio.” Mendes was also profiled in the 2020 documentary Sérgio Mendes: In the Key of Joy.

In an Instagram tribute, longtime friend and label boss Alpert wrote, “Sergio Mendes was my brother from another country passed away quietly and peacefully. He was a true friend and extremely gifted musician who brought Brazilian music in all its iterations to the entire world with elegance a joy.”

Mendes’ final performances took place in Nov. 2023 during a series of well-received shows in Paris, London and Barcelona.

Listen to some of Mendes’ most beloved songs and see Alpert’s tribute below.

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