Sunday, November 09, 2003

By Peter B. King, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When a sparkling wave of a song called "Mas Que Nada" started flowing from transistor radios across the United States in 1966, Americans couldn't know what the words meant. Most didn't even know what language the female vocalist was singing in.

	Sergio Mendes and Brasil 2003 Where: Manchester Craftsmen's Guild When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 7 and 9:30 p.m. Saturday; 2:30 p.m. next Sunday. Tickets: $35; 412-322-0800.

The tongue was Portuguese, but the music was universal -- jazzy piano, bass, drums and finger-snaps laying down a swinging minor-key bossa nova, with Lani Hall's double-tracked voice soaring overhead like a parasailer.

The group was Brasil '66, and it had a sound, says keyboardist and arranger Sergio Mendes. "You know, like a trademark. Like you could identify it and say, 'This is such-and-such group.' Like when you heard the Beatles or the Stones."

Mendes didn't write the song, but he fashioned the style that took it around the world. More and bigger hit singles followed, often bossa-spiced versions of already popular tunes such as "The Look of Love," "Scarborough Fair" and "Fool on the Hill." A string of albums climbed high on the charts, containing songs by great Brazilian writers such as Edu Lobo, Dori Caymmi and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

As successful as it was, Brasil '66 was only one phase in Mendes' varied career, which stretches from the bossa nova clubs of Rio de Janeiro to a World Music Grammy in the '90s for "Brasileiro." Mendes and his current band will perform at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild Thursday through next Sunday.

Mendes, 62, was born across the bay from Rio, a doctor's son. He was in his teens when he began playing instrumental music in a trio in the clubs of Rio's Copacabana neighborhood, eventually expanding to a sextet of piano, bass, drums, two trombones and tenor sax.

"They used to call it samba-jazz," Mendes says from his home just north of L.A., on a day made cloudy by the fires. "This was the early '60s. And I was listening to the Jazz Messengers and Horace Silver and Bud Powell. But at the same time, bossa nova was blooming. And so I said, 'Why not try to come up with an instrumental band and play those great Brazilian songs?' "

Jobim, Brazil's most famous composer, befriended Mendes, and American jazz musicians came calling as well. On his first night in Rio, flutist Herbie Mann heard Mendes at the Bottles Bar, and he recorded the "Do the Bossa Nova With Herbie Mann" album with Mendes and his Sexteto Bossa Rio in 1962. A year later, Mendes recorded "Cannonball's Bossa Nova" with alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley.

Mendes came to New York in 1962 to perform at the historic Town Hall Brazilian jazz concert. And in 1964, partly because his family had had a minor scrape with Brazil's then-military dictatorship, he moved to California.

Mendes made more samba-jazz albums for Atlantic and Capitol. But then he came up with something different -- keeping the bossa beat and lush melodies and harmonies, but stripping away the jazz improvisation, focusing tightly arranged pop gems around singers Hall and Janis Hansen.

"We worked a lot on that sound, and I liked it very much from the beginning. I thought it was something unique and fresh and simple, and it just developed from there. Then we got lucky, and some of those songs became hits."

Herb Alpert, of Tijuana Brass fame, signed Mendes to his label, A&M Records, and produced Mendes' first album.

Brasil '66's popularity peaked in 1968-69, when "The Look of Love," "Fool on the Hill" and "Scarborough Fair" were big hits, and the albums "Look Around" and "Fool on the Hill" both cracked the Top 5.

Hansen had already left by the time of "Fool on the Hill," and Hall would go a couple of albums later. The band's chart appeal faded. Still, Mendes was busy. He made "Primal Roots," a less commercial, more overtly Brazilian record in 1972. He bounced back onto the pop charts with the R&B flavored "Never Gonna Let You Go" in 1983. And he reached an artistic peak with his1992 CD "Brasileiro," which won a World Music Grammy -- partly on the strength of bewitching vocals by his wife, Gracinha Leporace.

Along the way, Mendes has done much to introduce U.S. audiences to the singular, sublime Brazilian songwriting tradition. Artists such as Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento, Ivan Lins, Caetano Veloso, Jorge Ben (who wrote "Mas Que Nada") and Mendes' current favorite, guitarist/composer Guinga, have either been produced by Mendes, participated on his CDs or had their songs recorded by him.

And yes, Mendes has written a few memorable tunes himself, including "Look Around" and the haunting "So Many Stars." Nevertheless, he considers himself mainly a keyboardist/arranger.

"I do enjoy playing other people's material. And I don't have enough discipline to go and be a real composer. I mean going to the piano every day to write a song. When you're talking about a Jobim, you're talking a serious composer. Or a Guinga, they write songs all day long. And I don't have the patience. I guess my nature -- I'm too restless, I like to go places, I like to try different things"

Listeners at the Craftsmen's Guild will hear some of the old hits, but overall, the sound should be funkier and way more Brazilian than, say, "The Look of Love." Percussion, in particular, plays a more prominent role than it did in the loungier side of Brasil '66.

Speaking of lounge music, Mendes' career got a jump-start not long ago when the retro, cocktail music craze swept young, hip America. Even Austin Powers was shaking his Union Jack boxers to "Mas Que Nada." How does Mendes feel about his work being labeled "retro" or "lounge"?

"There's so many labels, you know. They used to call it easy listening; it became adult contemporary. World music. Lounge music. Retro. Bossa." He laughs. "That's OK. I guess people sometimes have to label things."

He's just glad people are listening.

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