From a childhood in a cast to bossa nova on the American charts

Sérgio Mendes was born in 1941 in Niterói, across Guanabara Bay from Rio de Janeiro, and spent three years of his childhood in a cast because of osteomyelitis. His father was a doctor, and the boy was among the first people in Brazil to be given penicillin. He studied classical music at the local conservatory, hoping to become a classical pianist.

Jazz changed the plan. By the late 1950s he was playing in nightclubs just as bossa nova, a jazz-flavoured offshoot of samba, was emerging. He worked with Antônio Carlos Jobim, whom he regarded as a mentor, formed the Sexteto Bossa Rio, and recorded Dance Moderno in 1961. He toured Europe and the United States, made albums with Cannonball Adderley and Herbie Mann, and played a bossa nova festival at Carnegie Hall in 1962. In 1964 he settled in the US and cut two albums as Sergio Mendes & Brasil '65.

Sales stayed low until a change of language. His jazz albums for Atlantic sold poorly, so his partner Richard Adler suggested the group sing in English as well as Portuguese, supplying material such as “Goin' Out of My Head” and proposing two American female singers. An audition for Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss of A&M Records led to a contract for the new group, Brasil '66. Alpert produced, and the first single, “Mas que nada” by Jorge Ben, made the band a success. The album built around it went platinum.

Mendes went on to release 35 albums, mixing bossa nova with funk. In 2006 he re-recorded “Mas que nada” with the Black Eyed Peas, a remake that became a breakthrough hit all over again, and in 2012 he was nominated for an Oscar as a co-writer of “Real in Rio” from the film Rio. He was married to Gracinha Leporace, who performed with him from the early 1970s. He died on 5 September 2024, leaving a catalogue that carried Brazilian rhythm into the American mainstream.