A bridge between bossa nova and 1960s pop, Sergio Mendes' music was easy listening, vaguely psychedelic pop, light jazz, and bossa nova all rolled into one. Mendes and Brasil '66 (which featured Mendes on keyboards and a revolving cast of two female vocalists, bass, guitar, drums and percussion) had a number of hits from the mid-'60s to the early-1970s that are included here. Getting his professional start playing and arranging for Antonio Carlos Jobim and Joao Gilberto, Mendes typically filled out his proper albums with updated versions of popular songs written by the Brazilian masters as well as some of his own tunes .. his tunes "Look Around" and "So Many Stars" are included. But this collection really surveys his interpretations of pop tunes of the day, some of which were never hits for Mendes. The small combo's light touch and rich vocal harmonies make for pleasant if kitschy covers of hits like the Beatles' "Fool On The Hill" and "Day Tripper," Burt Bacharach's "The Look Of Love," and others.
It's good that Brasil '66 has succeeded, because it confirms one's belief that, musically, these are fluid times, with more openings than ever before for contemporary creative endeavor. I cannot see how substantial international achievement can elude this group who have marketed, with considerable taste, a delicately-mixed blend of pianistic jazz, subtle Latin nuances, Lennon-McCartneyisms, some Mancini, here and there a touch of Bacharach, cool, minor chords, danceable up-beat, gentle laughter and a little sex.
As I say, if the market will support this unabashed form of pop hybrid, then light music has indeed grown up and become very strong and healthy.
To put you in the picture — as Beryl Blood once said in a rare flash of wit — Brasil '66 is the name applied with astute euphonic accuracy to the four-man, two-girl entertainment unit which was consciously created, deliberately disciplined, and beyond doubt was bound to become beautiful and famous and rich and all of the things for which mortals have, since two wood clubs and a monkey-skin bought one stone axehead, been engaged in a ceaseless, relentless quest. The 'Brasil' of the title was selected because the group was established in Ipanema and '66, as you've guessed, is the year of the unit's creation.
The story of Brasil '66 actually began a few years ago, in Ipanema when Sergio Mendes, a conspicuous and talented young pianist on the Bossa Nova scene, had formed a quintet and as his travels in North America increased, he began to dig the new, healthy U.S./Latin musical fusion of Getz and he was sufficiently motivated by musical instincts and money to set about making danceable, hummable, singable, melodic jazz-Brazil-pop go to work for him.
At the end of 1964, he left Brazil and with a young New York lawyer named RichardAdler as manager, he set up the group which became known as Brasil '65. Through personnel changes and tireless experimentation, he arrived at what he now believes to be the ideal combination of vocal and instrumental power, without bias in either direction.
By spring of 1966 they were ready for much work. Adler and Mendes diffidently asked A&M to look them over and the record company's enthusiasm was boundless. Herb Alpert took them on tour with him and though Alpert's generous personal and publicized approval of Brasil '66 has been of incalculable value to the group, it emerged that Brasil '66 were certain, clear and critically-appraised artists in their own separate right.
A Memphis journalist wrote: "Look for this group to climb from under Alpert's shadow into a spotlight all their own."
