Sergio Mendes: 10 Essential Songs

Sergio Mendes earned a lasting place in international pop as a conduit between Brazilian music and the wider world. He had the genial stage presence, arranging skills and musical standards of an expert bandleader. He also had the A&R savvy and crossover instincts to latch onto potential hits and collaborate with musicians across multiple generations.

Mendes carried songs from Brazil’s master songwriters — among them Antonio Carlos Jobim, Jorge Ben Jor and Carlinhos Brown — to listeners worldwide, often in English translations. He also found American and British songs that could dovetail with Brazilian rhythms. His music chose suaveness over bite, and it sometimes shaded into slick easy listening or sought an over-processed American pop sheen. Yet while he spent much of his career living in the United States, his foundations in Brazilian music stayed strong.

Here, in chronological order, are 10 worthwhile songs from Sergio Mendes’s huge catalog. Listen on Spotify or Apple Music (or via YouTube links on each song title).

Sergio Mendes, ‘Oba-là-là’ (1961)

Mendes thought he was headed for a career in jazz on his 1961 debut album, “Dance Moderno,” which mingled Brazilian songs and American jazz standards. It opens with “Oba-là-là” by João Gilberto, an upbeat bossa nova with Mendes’s piano plinking out crisp chords and a zigzagging solo.

Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66, ‘Mas Que Nada’ (1966)

Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 was the lineup that would bring Mendes hits through the 1960s, with women’s voices carried by breezy Brazilian rhythms. The band’s international breakthrough featured the irresistible melody of the Ben Jor song “Mas Que Nada.” The song’s lyrics, in Portuguese, praise the deep Afro-Brazilian tradition of samba. But Mendes’s finger-snapping version, with Lani Hall’s lead vocals, also uses thick, bluesy piano chords to add a touch of Nuyorican boogaloo. He remade the song repeatedly through the decades — all the way up to an EDM update this year — but his first one endures.