
Sérgio Santos Mendes (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈsɛχʒiu ˈsɐ̃tuʒ ˈmẽȷ̃dʒiʃ]; born February 11, 1941 in Niterói, Brazil) is a Brazilian musician. He has released over thirty-five albums, and plays bossa nova heavily crossed with jazz and funk. Mendes is married to Gracinha Leporace who regularly performs vocals for her husband and can also be heard on his 2006 version of the Jorge Ben Jor song "Mas Que Nada" with Black Eyed Peas. The child of a physician in Niterói, Brazil, Mendes attended the local conservatory with hopes of becoming a classical pianist. As his interest in jazz grew, he started playing in nightclubs in the late-1950s just as bossa nova, a jazz-inflected derivative of samba, was emerging. Mendes played with Antonio Carlos Jobim (regarded as a mentor) and many US jazz musicians who toured Brazil. Mendes formed the Sexteto Bossa Rio and recorded Dance Moderno in 1961. Touring Europe and the United States, Mendes recorded albums with Cannonball Adderley and Herbie Mann and played Carnegie Hall. Mendes moved to the US in 1964 and cut two albums under the Sergio Mendes & Brasil '65 group name with Capitol Records and Atlantic Records. When sales were tepid, he replaced his Brazilian born vocalist Wanda de Sá with the distinctive voice of Chicago native Lani Hall (who learned Mendes' Portuguese material phonetically), switched to Herb Alpert's A&M label, and released Herb Alpert Presents Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66, an album that went platinum based largely on <b>...</b>
Sergio
Mendes
Brasil
'66
Mas
Que
Nada
Bossa
nova
samba
latin
pop
lounge
soft
rock
smooth
jazz
disco
thebacmaster
Music
Videos