Sergio Mendes, the Brazilian-born pianist, composer and arranger who brought bossa nova music to a global audience in the 1960s through his ensemble, Brasil ’66, and remained a force in popular music for more than six decades, died on Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 83.
His family said in a statement that his death, in a hospital, was caused by long Covid.
Mendes released nearly 35 albums, won three Grammys and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2012 for best original song (as co-writer of Real in Rio, from the animated film Rio).
His career in America took flight in 1966 with Brasil ’66 and the single Mas Que Nada, written by the Brazilian singer-songwriter Jorge Ben. The Mendes sound was deceptively sophisticated rhythmically but gentle on the ears, suavely amplifying the original guitar-centered murmur of bossa nova with expansive keyboard-driven arrangements and cooing vocal lines that usually included Mendes himself chiming in alongside a front line of two female singers.
The group’s lilting, sensual pulse came to embody an adult contemporary cool in the 1960s that contrasted pointedly with the ascendant youth culture that came to dominate the pop charts in the wake of the Beatles.
“It was completely different from anything, and definitely completely different from rock ’n’ roll,” the Latin music scholar Leila Cobo observed in the 2020 HBO documentary Sergio Mendes in the Key of Joy.
New York Times News Service
