Just heard that Sergio Mendes has died. Anyone else like that style of soft-bossa-pop? There was a time (long before the Black Eyed Peas involvement) when his arrangements were quite interesting and reasonably innovative.
Thought I’d share a few tracks that I like…
This used to get played on the old jazz-dance scene… Been comped a few times:
A reasonably ‘authentic’ version:
His big psychedelic track. Dave Grusin involvement, iirc.
Heard Joey Negro play this about 30 years ago, thought it sounded amazing and the crowd loved it (I have subsequently tried on several occasions to emulate it’s effect, without success ):
I always liked his takes on Scarborough Fair and Norwegian Wood:
Unfortunately I can’t hear his name without being reminded of this scene from Sienfeld, where Kramer and Newman are trying to sell Jerry’s old records.
He included a version of Viramundo (by Gilberto Gil) on his Brasil '66 album, but it was the live version by his Brasil '77 line-up that got attention on the dancefloor courtesy of Paul Murphy and Gilles P. I think the drums on this got sampled by someone, but can’t remember who :
Although it was filmed in an LA studio I’m sure the use of the exterior shot of Bleecker Bob’s in NYC was due to the near-legendary truculence of the staff there.
Great stuff! Thanks for dropping the knowledge on these, Hadrian
I can’t help feeling that if that particular track (Magalenha) was on a SoulJazz comp and had been on a rare album by some otherwise obscure Brazilian band then lots of collectors would be going mad for it - but because it’s by Sergio Mendes it somehow won’t count because it won’t be understood to be sufficiently ‘authentic’
If you like Sergio, you might like Itamar Assumpcao. Funkier, and often more political, but many things in common as well. He put out a lot of great music, very little of it is known outside of Brazil.
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