Sergio Mendes Music

There seem to be a lot of greatest hits collection of Sergio Mendes that frankly aren't ... but this qualifies. If you love old school 60's bossa nova-fun trip hop-easy listening and sunny pop, this is a great collection - these are really their greatest hits ... though the 2-disc "Very Best of Sergio Mendes & Brazil 66 [IMPORT]" (also from Amazon) also contains all these tracks plus another 20 or more tracks so if you love Sergio, that is an even better deal!

There seem to be a lot of greatest hits collection of Sergio Mendes that frankly aren't ... but this qualifies. If you love old school 60's bossa nova-fun trip hop-easy listening and sunny pop, this is a great collection - these are really their greatest hits ... though the 2-disc "Very Best of Sergio Mendes & Brazil 66 [IMPORT]" (also from Amazon) also contains all these tracks plus another 20 or more tracks so if you love Sergio, that is an even better deal!

Really, the best selection from Sergio Mendes and
Brasil66/77....Probably the most perfect and popular performance
to "The Look Of Love", "Going out of my Head", "Watch what happens" and "So many Stars".

I began my love affair with Sergio Mendes with a couple of EPs back in the 60s. The sound is unique, and the arrangements are so clever.

So many people have performed Beatles songs, and not many have been able to create anything remotely as interesting or tasteful as the originals. However George Martin's In My Life album and Goran Sollscher's Here There and Everywhere classical guitar CD are notable exceptions.

But The Brasil 66 versions of Fool On the Hill, With A Little Help From My Friends, Daytripper and Norwegian Wood are so different from the originals, and yet so right! I love the sounds and harmonies and clever departures from the original songs.

Some of the standout tracks on this collection are:
The Look of Love
Cole Porter's Night and Day
Tom Jobim's Wave
Mendes' own So Many Stars
Pretty World
Like a Lover

But I still adore the songs I first heard over 30 years ago:
Mendes' own Look Around and his arrangement of the folk song Scarborough Fair.

Highly recommended

have been an avid fan of bossa nova music for years... and sergio mendes has always an amazing musician! love this album a lot!

this album is amazing. retro, spicy and just flat out good.

I listen to this CD when I go for my evening walks. It's wonderful music to walk to (and dance to!). I am absolutely crazy about Sergio Mendes & Brazil 66!. My favorite song on this CD is "Sometimes In Winter." It's a beautiful, haunting song. All the songs are great, but that is the best.

This CD is a timeless, time-capsule treasure trove of pure pop pleasure. Sergio Mendes is a bossa nova Bacharach - not just because he covered both types of music, but because he shares whith the American an interest in revivifying the aesthetic of Tin Pan Alley, tempering it with a 60s pop melancholy (both especially cherish the inherent sadness of brass), and, in Mendes' case, cooling it with jazz discipline gleaned from his association with Jobim. The half century of melodic miracles on this CD may be divided into three types:

1. Cover versions of pop standards so annoyingly familiar you never want to hear the originals again. Mendes takes songs by the likes of the Beatles, Bacharach, Jimmy Webb and Simon & Garfunkel, re-arranges and re-imagines them in a samba mode, convincing you that they were originally written in Brazil after all. 'The Fool On The Hill' nearly collapses under its visionary excess; 'Day Tripper' becomes alive through slick jazz rhythms; 'What The World Needs Now' throttles at a frightening pace; 'Cheslea Morning' and 'Night and Day' exude sunny Rio rays; 'Norwegian Wood' brings out the yo-yo intensity buried in the original.

2. Arrangements of bossa nova classics by Mendes' old jamming cohorts. These are less radical than the above, and the attempts by anonymous, if proficient, session singers to replicate the idiosyncratic Astrud/Joao vibe don't always work; but the subtle reworkings offer new takes on old favourites - 'Bim Bom' is especially definitive, Mendes mining the wistfulness in the most frivolous of songs, sensing the music's soul in the piano. 'One Note Samba', which segues here into 'Spanish Fly', shouln't work, and doesn't, but is invigorating nonetheless.

3. Less familiar covers and original songs (written by Mendes and friends), which rarely equal the emotional depth of Jobim or Bonfa, but offer groovy bliss, warm generosity, bouyant fun and reflective sorrow in equal measures. 'Sometimes In Winter' is a pretentious epic with the most glorious melodic bridge; 'Pretty World' is one of the few songs that knows what being rapturously in love actually sounds like; 'Cancao Do Nosso Amor' and 'Pradizer Adeus' know the same despondancy that provoked Jobim's 'Insensatez'.

This division is, of course, arbitrary and artificial - unique production, settings and instrumentation mean each and every song sounds like a Mendes original. Cosmo Kramer was right - some people can still go wild for Sergio Mendes.

I just recently discovered Brasil '66 when I heard "Pretty World" on a jazzy oldies type station. I knew instantly that the singer was someone special & a master singer. Now I'm listening to many of their songs and I never get tired of them. Their music is just pure, clean, good, real music! It is free from technical gimmicks or anything heavy or unnecessary. Their music is so happy, innocent, and fun. I LOVE IT. I can't get enough of it! They're definitely my favorite right now. The best thing about Brasil '66 is Lani Hall. What a great singer she is. Also the jazzy bossanova instrumentals are refreshingly different from anything I've listened to before. I'm looking forward to getting better hi-fi equipment so I can hear them in all their glory. I bet they sound really great on a tube stereo system.

have been an avid fan of bossa nova music for years... and sergio mendes has always an amazing musician! love this album a lot!

this album is amazing. retro, spicy and just flat out good.

I listen to this CD when I go for my evening walks. It's wonderful music to walk to (and dance to!). I am absolutely crazy about Sergio Mendes & Brazil 66!. My favorite song on this CD is "Sometimes In Winter." It's a beautiful, haunting song. All the songs are great, but that is the best.

This CD is a timeless, time-capsule treasure trove of pure pop pleasure. Sergio Mendes is a bossa nova Bacharach - not just because he covered both types of music, but because he shares whith the American an interest in revivifying the aesthetic of Tin Pan Alley, tempering it with a 60s pop melancholy (both especially cherish the inherent sadness of brass), and, in Mendes' case, cooling it with jazz discipline gleaned from his association with Jobim. The half century of melodic miracles on this CD may be divided into three types:

1. Cover versions of pop standards so annoyingly familiar you never want to hear the originals again. Mendes takes songs by the likes of the Beatles, Bacharach, Jimmy Webb and Simon & Garfunkel, re-arranges and re-imagines them in a samba mode, convincing you that they were originally written in Brazil after all. 'The Fool On The Hill' nearly collapses under its visionary excess; 'Day Tripper' becomes alive through slick jazz rhythms; 'What The World Needs Now' throttles at a frightening pace; 'Cheslea Morning' and 'Night and Day' exude sunny Rio rays; 'Norwegian Wood' brings out the yo-yo intensity buried in the original.

2. Arrangements of bossa nova classics by Mendes' old jamming cohorts. These are less radical than the above, and the attempts by anonymous, if proficient, session singers to replicate the idiosyncratic Astrud/Joao vibe don't always work; but the subtle reworkings offer new takes on old favourites - 'Bim Bom' is especially definitive, Mendes mining the wistfulness in the most frivolous of songs, sensing the music's soul in the piano. 'One Note Samba', which segues here into 'Spanish Fly', shouln't work, and doesn't, but is invigorating nonetheless.

3. Less familiar covers and original songs (written by Mendes and friends), which rarely equal the emotional depth of Jobim or Bonfa, but offer groovy bliss, warm generosity, bouyant fun and reflective sorrow in equal measures. 'Sometimes In Winter' is a pretentious epic with the most glorious melodic bridge; 'Pretty World' is one of the few songs that knows what being rapturously in love actually sounds like; 'Cancao Do Nosso Amor' and 'Pradizer Adeus' know the same despondancy that provoked Jobim's 'Insensatez'.

This division is, of course, arbitrary and artificial - unique production, settings and instrumentation mean each and every song sounds like a Mendes original. Cosmo Kramer was right - some people can still go wild for Sergio Mendes.

I just recently discovered Brasil '66 when I heard "Pretty World" on a jazzy oldies type station. I knew instantly that the singer was someone special & a master singer. Now I'm listening to many of their songs and I never get tired of them. Their music is just pure, clean, good, real music! It is free from technical gimmicks or anything heavy or unnecessary. Their music is so happy, innocent, and fun. I LOVE IT. I can't get enough of it! They're definitely my favorite right now. The best thing about Brasil '66 is Lani Hall. What a great singer she is. Also the jazzy bossanova instrumentals are refreshingly different from anything I've listened to before. I'm looking forward to getting better hi-fi equipment so I can hear them in all their glory. I bet they sound really great on a tube stereo system.

Another great offering from Sergio Mendes. The band is really swinging on tunes like the upbeat "Funny You Should Say That" (fantastic guitar work and great horn arrangement). Stevie Wonder's "If You Really Love Me" (angelic harmonies from the two beauties - Bonnie and Gracinha. Plus wonderful flute, alto sax and string voicings) "This Masquerade" featuring Bonnie Bowden's soft, sexy voice, "Voce Abousou" (the whole gang). "Waiting For Love" is surprising beautiful. What a great album that I remember from the 70's; along with the albums "LOVE MUSIC" and "HOME COOKING." What a treasure that Brasil has given us in Sergios Mendes and all his bands, through the years.

This CD reveals the spirit and music of Sergio Mendes. It's fantastic and awesome!

This is the same program as "The Beat of Brazil," which is currently combined with "The Swinger from Rio." Thus, the other CD is a better value than this one, which you'd get only as a collector's item.

"Você ainda não ouviu nada" is the original (LP) recording with samba, bossa nova and jazz fusion made by Sergio Mendes and his group in the early sixties. Several compilations were made from this superb material, such as those mentioned in the review posted above. In essence, it is one of the very first samba-jazz recordings, which has launched a new approach to Bossa Nova and opened up the scene for several other great Brazilian jazz musicians, including J.T. Meirelles, Eumir Deodato, Roberto Menescal etc. This CD represents a historical moment. A five-star and MUST HAVE recording if you are Brazilian Jazz, Bossa Nova or MPB fan.

This is the same program as "The Beat of Brazil," which is currently combined with "The Swinger from Rio." Thus, the other CD is a better value than this one, which you'd get only as a collector's item.

This is the same program as "The Beat of Brazil," which is currently combined with "The Swinger from Rio." Thus, the other CD is a better value than this one, which you'd get only as a collector's item.

"Você ainda não ouviu nada" is the original (LP) recording with samba, bossa nova and jazz fusion made by Sergio Mendes and his group in the early sixties. Several compilations were made from this superb material, such as those mentioned in the review posted above. In essence, it is one of the very first samba-jazz recordings, which has launched a new approach to Bossa Nova and opened up the scene for several other great Brazilian jazz musicians, including J.T. Meirelles, Eumir Deodato, Roberto Menescal etc. This CD represents a historical moment. A five-star and MUST HAVE recording if you are Brazilian Jazz, Bossa Nova or MPB fan.

This is the same program as "The Beat of Brazil," which is currently combined with "The Swinger from Rio." Thus, the other CD is a better value than this one, which you'd get only as a collector's item.