When Brazilian composer, producer, and arranger Sergio Mendes passed away in September, the music world lost an icon. Mendes, both with and without his renowned group Brasil ’66, was instrumental in introducing the lush rhythms of bossa nova and smooth Brazilian jazz to the pop scenes of the U.S. and UK during the 1960s with hits like ‘Mas que Nada.’
Honoring Mendes’ legacy, Philadelphia’s acclaimed Brazilian music duo, Minas—composed of guitarist-vocalist Orlando Haddad and pianist-vocalist Patricia King Haddad—will take the stage at World Café Live on Nov. 30. Joined by bassist Steve Beskrone, drummer Tom Cohen, and multi-instrumentalist John Swanna, they will pay tribute to the globally influential maestro.
“I was a Sergio Mendes fan as a young teenager as his music created a splash of tropical sun — a positive and bright feeling, with sensuality and a driving beat,” says Patricia. “His harmonies and rhythms were complex — the melodies, the lyrics… what was there not to love?
“How he could place modulation at a certain point in the song that seems to lift you off the ground and flood you with emotion,” Patricia continues. “Through the years, I’ve listened to his records and count on how each Sergio song refreshes, and washes my soul. Mendes’ music always lifts my mood.”
Orlando recounts living in Rio de Janeiro in 1968 when he first heard Mendes and Brasil ’66 in a live performance: “I knew many of these songs in their original form, in Portuguese, by their composers like Jorge Ben, Edu Lobo and Antonio Adolfo. What grabbed me was Mendes’ happy, jazzy mood, played over bossa nova beats with two female singers singing Portuguese lyrics with an American accent – that accent was so intriguing, cute and catchy.”
Going full-circle to how he met his wife while studying classical composition in the U.S., Orlando recalls Patrica listening to a score of Sergio Mendes, Flora Purim and Chick Corea records.
“She was smitten with Brazilian music and asked me to write Portuguese lyrics to one of her songs,” he says. “We started working together, and were offered gigs through our student agency. We needed repertoire, so we learned Mendes, Purim, Jobim and some João Gilberto, worked up 10 tunes to perform at a private event and earned $50, which was OK money in 1976.”
The married Haddads, as Minas, admired Mendes’ arrangements for their creativity, sophistication, and for its stylistically different spins on familiar tunes. As deep cut fans, the Haddads also found favorites in Mendes’ album obscurities such as ‘Primal Roots’ in which his band went back to Brazil’s African roots “while pushing the envelope further, stretching out harmonically, melodically, and rhythmically,” says the guitarist. “We’ll perform the opening track of that album, “Promessa de Pescador’ on Saturday.”
Welcoming Philly jazz players Beskrone, Swana and Cohen into Minas this weekend, Patricia enthuses about how each musician “understands the Brazilian language, its rhythmic feel,” while Swana’s solos on EVI (electric valve instrument) “add a 60s/70s psychedelic spin on the music that was emerging at the time when Sergio was flourishing.”
For more information and tickets, visit worldcafelive.org
