“I immediately liked it,” Mendes, now 80, told me in Portuguese on a recent Zoom call. Speaking a little English and with not much money, he got a small apartment in Glendale and his first car, a Chevrolet 1951, and discovered a city he didn’t know much about. He moved here to follow his artistic ambitions but he was also escaping a dictatorship that would engulf Brazil for the next two decades. Mendes has been an Angeleno since November 1964. But with Mendes there’s another layer to it because when I listen to his songs, I feel like he’s traveling there and back with me, between L.A. Listening to Brazilian music is like going home. He carried the open shape of its melodies with him, molding them until they also became a part of L.A.’s hills, avenues and beaches. and what forms the backbone of his music to this day - was composed along the beaches of Rio, inspired by its mountainous landscape and beauty. Bossa nova - which is what Mendes started playing in L.A. It’s a place where his bubbly and cool music fits. It makes sense that Mendes would flourish in L.A., having come from the similarly laid-back coastal city of Niteroi, near Rio de Janeiro. He not only brought Brazilian music to the world but refreshed it with each interpretation, with each cultural encounter. too, collaborating with Italian, French and Japanese musicians. A pianist who’s arranged and produced his songs, he folded Brazilian rhythms and language into American jazz and folk until they became intertwined, part of each other. The best translations don’t erase the original language and culture but rather integrate them into the other. Mendes is among the great translators of sound in recent memory. Translation is a process of illuminating one language and culture through another. “He’s a translator,” says will.i.am, rapper and lead member of the Black Eyed Peas, in a new documentary by John Scheinfeld, “Sérgio Mendes: In the Key of Joy.” “He translated something going on in Brazil to the whole world.” Sure, he didn’t accomplish this change alone, but the legacy he built here, specifically in Los Angeles where he’s now been for most of his life, stands out from his contemporaries. But Brazilians longed for a more nuanced, less stereotyped portrait. Before his arrival, Americans mostly knew the sound of Brazil as Carmen Miranda - and her fruit hats. Mendes helped put Brazilian music on the map in the United States. I’ve shared playlists of Mendes’ music with friends, typed out his name in Word docs, so they knew how to pronounce his name phonetically: Main- jees. It’s a samba tune, titled “Magalenha,” composed by Carlinhos Brown and recorded by Sérgio Mendes, a Brazilian musician I’ve listened to since childhood, his sprightly, jazzy takes on bossa nova in the background of car rides or dinners at home.Īs a Brazilian who has grown up moving around, music has been one of my constant refuges, a way for my body to travel to Brazil and back. My instructor, a long and nimble blond woman, presses play on her stereo while we stretch, but to my surprise - I expected our usual New Age vibe - I hear jubilant drums and singing in Portuguese. It’s 2005 and I’ve recently moved to Miami from Brasília. I’m having a flashback to my high school dance class.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |