Celebration - A Musical Journey

The Top Five success of "The Girl from Ipanema" by Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto in 1964 paved the way for Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 two years later, establishing a fashion for Brazilian samba with cool female vocals in English. Mendes, a Brazilian-born pianist, was launched by Herb Alpert's A&M Records, and after recording his own version of the Getz/Gilberto hit (heard here as "Garota de Ipanema") went on to a series of hits in the mid- to late ‘60s in which he applied Brazilian pop arrangements to covers of familiar pop songs with Lani Hall usually handling the Gilberto-like vocals. The Mendes treatments of Bacharach/David's "The Look of Love" and the Beatles' "The Fool on the Hill" even reached the Top Ten. This two-CD set presents the highlights of Mendes' popular heyday, including his 1983 comeback hit "Never Gonna Let You Go" (on which the vocals were taken by Joe Pizzulo and Leza Miller). All the hits are included, and toward the end of the second disc, Mendes' first chart entry, "Mas Que Nada," is even transformed into a rap by Black Eyed Peas, among other remixes and remakes.