Sambaguru/Mendes connections

[Aqua do Brasil]

Dear Mendes fans,

Some of Sergio’s bandmembers throughout the past and current years were partly founders and musicans of the Sambaguru ensemble of musicians from Brazil, India, Sri Lanka and the USA.

It started in the late eighties when Tony Shogren, who was playing with Sonia Santos and the Obathalá band called Bill Brendle to fill in the open keyboard place. Through his work with Santos Bill Brendle met with Brazilian percussionist Meia Noite.

The Midnight Drums band from Meia Noite in wich Katia Moraes was singing were joined by Bill Brendle and Sri Lanka bassist Hussain Jiffrey
and joined by Tony Shogren and was called Brasil Nuts.

Later on with several personnel shiftings the bands name was tranformed in Meia Noite and Sambaguru members are currently:

Katia Moraes: Vocals
Bill Brendle : Keyboards and musical Director
Hussain Jiffry: Bass
Tony Shogren: drums
Kevin Richard: Percussion
Savan Divecha: guitar

All those members perform of have been performed with Sergio Mendes except mr. Savan Divecha.

All the best ,
Aqua do Brasil

 

[Brasil_Nut]

Aqua...

Hussain and I like to exchange e-mails every once in a while. In addition to being one the best bassists to come out of Sri Lanka, he is absolutely one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet. Anyway, he got a kick out of the fact that my screen name is "Brasil Nut" -- of course, a reminder of his days with the 'Brasil Nuts' band. His e-mails usually begin with, "Hey Nut!" He's the greatest.

Interesting how all of these talented musicians came together, isn't it? Bill Brendle once told Paul Jeromack and I that he had always been a huge fan of Sergio. He was thrilled and honored to join Sergio's band starting with Brasil '99. "It's a dream come true," he told us last year in New York. He was also amazed at the amount of background information that Paul and I have in regard to Sergio, his beginnings, his history. "Hey, Serg..." he'd say. "These guys are amazing! They know more about us than we do!!" and he'd laugh.

When it comes down to it, from Sergio to Gracinha, Jessica to Dawn, Hussain to Bill, Bill to Kevin Winard -- the entire Mendes organization is grateful to their fans. As Sergio has said, "We just couldn't do it without the audience."

Jon