Who Has The Largest Sergio Mendes Collection?

My collection is quite large and contains duplicates of my very favorites. Several of my LP and CD sleeves are signed by Mr. Mendes, as I was fortunate to meet him in the summer of 2007 when he played at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville TN.

JB
 
I have all the Brasil'66 and ' 77 lps including Greatest Hits and Foursider. I also have the "Favorite Things" lp. I also have the same items on cd except for "Favorite Things." In addition, I have the promo single of "Crystal Illusions" and the "Classics" cd from A&M Records.
I go to thrift and used record stores and sometimes find the old lps and buy them so I have a number of extra copies.
I listen to Brasil'66 more than any other artist that I have on lp or cd.
 
I'm maybe not the biggest collector, but I am persistent. Joining this forum in 1997, I was overjoyed to find some links to import CDs with Sergio Mendes and his various groups and to add much to my CD collection. But I was also dismayed that several posters talked of a box set, SERIE GRANDES NOMES, which apparently came and went back in 1995. I was never able to find it anywhere for sale, and it was barely mentioned anywhere.

Nearly two decades of searching is finally about to pay off as today I found that box set listed on eBay. And it's still sealed to boot! I was always prepared, if I ever found that set, to cough up around $100 or so, but this, even with shipping was less than that, so I think I did OK. Looking forward to its arrival.

Harry
 
Im not the biggest fan either but im happy to say since age 14 ive been a fan of Brasil 66 i have no vinyl anymore. But i have all the Brasil 66 Cds including greatest hits. foursider and Classics A few needledrop cds of brasil77 and proper Cds except Primal roots and vintage 74. And i have one brasil 88 cd "magic lady" on a cd two fer with his Elektra self titled cd along with both brasil 65 releases on capitol and atlantic the capitol cd also has a Wanda de sah solo album as a two fer the atlantic is a 3 fer with live at el matador paired with " Pele" and " Favorite things" all the atlantic instrumental jazz cd reissues and needledrops of all his 80s albums except arara. Then brasilero and oceano cds and the cds from Timeless to Bom tempo. And after that i decided his modern stuff just wasnt as good as his older music. ( (I'm Sorry Sergio with all due respect) I would like to see him do some more jazz instrumentals these days i really enjoyed those he did pre A&M. But nevertheless im happy i have what i have.
 
a box set, SERIE GRANDES NOMES, which apparently came and went back in 1995. I was never able to find it anywhere for sale, and it was barely mentioned anywhere.
I have that set. I remember being giddy with excitement when I first heard about it -- I figured, with that many disks, it was BOUND to have most or all of the Sergio tracks I'd longed to get on CD. (I forget where I ordered it, but the website didn't list the tracks so I just went on faith.) And indeed it did have most of them, although one of my biggest favorites, "Sometimes in Winter," was missing. Still, it's a really nice set, has a lot of good pictures too. I've found it covers pretty much my whole need for pre-A&M Sergio. I do wish there was a translation of the Japanese text though!

After that set, the next Sergio "holy grail" was that British "Very Best of Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66" set, which contained the vast majority of the music. For quite a while I was pretty sure that would be the extent of Brasil '66 to ever get released on CD, but then awhile later the Japanese saved the day again with reissues of just about all the albums. My favorite Sergio items are my "LP replica" issues of many of the albums, especially Primal Roots and Stillness.
 
I still remember a dozen or so years ago when we had a huge run on Dusty Groove when those Japan Brasil '66 CDs were released. :D With that and other A&M rarities coming from Japan, Dusty Groove was like the Holy Land for some of us. :D They carry a lot of out-of-the-way stuff, even on LP, records you won't find outside of Brazil or Latin America, rare US funk and soul, blues, you name it. The cool thing is, when they had albums listed on their site, they gave a little synopsis of each title, and you could tell whoever ran the store was a musical fanatic.

If I get time the day before AXPONA I am making a point to pay them a visit. I'm arriving the day before the show, hopefully by noon, so that will give me a few hours to hit a couple of stores, have dinner, and maybe visit another afterward. I'm told by my buddy in Chicago that I'll enjoy the store. :wink:
 
Far as Sergio's catalog goes, I'm seeking out everything pre-A&M at the moment. I have most of it digitally but want the real versions on vinyl. Some will be hard to find, I know.
 
That box set arrived a couple of weeks ago, and true to its ad, was still sealed. However, the glue that held the plastic disc holders to the front and back inside covers had dried up and those plastic trays were totally loose when I opened the set. Temporarily, I've used some double-sided tape to keep them from flying all over the place.

Our old friend Paula had made copies of Discs Two and Three for me, so I already knew how the set sounded. Disc One contains most of the pre-66 stuff, and the fourth disc has the latter-day stuff from A&M and Elektra.

Harry
 
Those trays came off in my copy within a few weeks of me having it, and that's when it was brand new! They must have used low quality glue.
 
Vinyl: "Arrival"; "Herb Alpert Presents..."; and "Equinox".
Reel-to-reel tape: "Fool On the Hill" (OR-4160); "Greatest Hits" (OR-4252); and "Stillness" (OR-4284).
 
Haven't gotten 'round to inventory my collection yet, but here are a few tidbits which some might find interesting (after dusting them off) -


Review and OU.jpg July '70.jpg Oakland U Sched.jpg

Got more, if anyone's interested....
 
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If I recall correctly, the reviewer was Peter Reilly and the mag was 'Stereo Review', c/ 1966 or 67. I also recall being somewhat upset at his "damning with faint praise" (or was it "praising with faint damnation") review at the time, but most of his reviews were somewhat negative, generating lots of letters from irate readers (but not me). I think I have that 7" reel-to-reel tape downstairs somewhere (or was it "Equinox")?
 
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If I recall correctly, the reviewer was Peter Reilly and the mag was 'Stereo Review', c/ 1966 or 67. I also recall being somewhat upset at his "damning with faint praise" (or was it "praising with faint damnation") review at the time, but most of his reviews were somewhat negative, generating lots of letters from irate readers (but not me). I think I have that 7" reel-to-reel tape downstairs somewhere (or was it "Equinox")?
I have the reels of: FOOL ON THE HILL, GREATEST HITS, and STILLNESS (the rest are the vinyl counterparts). But, the A&M-made reissues from 1968-1972 were all at the 7 1/2ips speed and A LOT better than the ones Ampex duplicated.
 
Transcribed from a clipping in the Philadelphia Inquirer from a show I attended in the early '70s. The actual Xerox copy is too hard to scan.

Brasil '66 Appears
Before Mixed Group

By HOAG LEVINS
Of The Inquirer Staff

In a rare moment Sunday night, the Academy of
Music became a temporary foot bridge across the generation
gap as young and old found common ground in an area
where they are usually
farthest apart: music.
It was a full house, containing
as many starched collars as it
did bellbottoms, that greeted
Sergio Mendes and his Brasil
'66 group on their third Phila-
delphia appearance in as many
years.
And it was nothing but smiles
and mutual delight for all ages
who found themselves swaying
or tapping along to
the jazz-cum-Latin arrange-
ments with catchy rhythms, but
gentle impact.
ALPERT PROTEGE
Mendes, who came to fame in
1966 as a protege of Herb Alpert
has come into his own right as
a star and each number during
Sunday's hour-long show was
greeted with thundering applause.
His music has a strange
haunting quality that defies
placement in a category. It is
an unusual blending of classical,
bossa nova and jazz bags
Mendes has been in and out of
during his years on musical
travel from South America to
the top of the American musical
heap.
STRUCTURE DRAMATIC
The diminutive Brazilian car-
ries a heavy load on stage with
only an electric bass and two
drummers to back up his piano
work. It poses no problem,
though, and his liquid finger
work and rhythm-within-a-
rhythm techniques would make
a blind man swear it was really
two pianists playing instead of
one.
The dramatic structures of al-
most all of Brasil '66's songs
such as "What The World Needs
Now," and "Norwegian Wood,"
add a feeling of suspense and
a sense of urgency, that lift
an audience out of a passive
watcher's role. It's drumming
fingers and tapping feet all
along.
LATIN SPICE
Out front on stage and adding
visual appeal are two longhair-
ed vocalists whose sultry lyric
work comes near to being vocal
erotica. They manage well to
project much of the spice that
is Latin music into numbers
such as "Dock Of The Bay,"
"Fool On The Hill" and "The
Look Of Love."
Theirs was one of the most
refreshing performances seen at
the Academy this year.
Accompanying Brasil '66 was
Bossa Rio. The sextet did a
lively job of loosening the crowd
up as the show opened.
COMEDIAN APPEARS
Into a very Latin-oriented
sound, similar to Mendes's, the
group did well on such numbers
as "Eleanor Rigby" and "San
Jose".
Sandwiched between the music
was comedian Don Sherman,
who won the audience with his
opening "Philadelphia is the
gateway to Camden."
The balding Sherman, with
mutton chop sideburns and a
walrus moustache took jabs at
religious groups and pulled peals
of laughter out of the crowd.
 
Brasil 66 Fan--Great clippings from your collection. Please post more if you have a chance.
 
OK, here's more. Two Pics from the '67 Michigan State Fair which have been shown here before, but may be new to some. Not digital quality, but not bad for a snot-nosed 17 year old (me) with a cheapo Kodak Instamatic 104 camera. Figure I'd better share my 'collection' since I'm not getting younger and the wife will most likely deposit my treasured possessions in a dumpster after I'm gone. As you'll note, one is a "full length view" of my avatar...

State Fair '67 (a).jpg State Fair '67 (b).jpg
 
For an old Kodak camera, truly awesome shots of Lani and Janis and the gang! Thanks for posting. I am an old sentimentalist and it is great to go down memory lane! I was 18 years old in the summer of 1967, and I consider myself one of the lucky ones to have followed Brasil 66 from its very start. The younger guys--many not even born-- missed out on the original excitement of this new sound from Brasil 66. It is a great feeling to say "I was there" when a new musical sound began. It was great to have been a teenager in the 1960s listening to this incredible music. For me, the epitome of Brasil 66 was Janis singing lead on the "Look of Love" and Lani's solo vocal on "Like a Lover"--two perfect musical bookends.
 
Tim, thanks again for those photos. They were an eyeful back in 1997-8 when they first appeared here and they haven't lost any of their lustre in the 20 years since. It's nice to see them scanned at a higher bit depth than the older ones, which I still have on my computer, transferred from old Windows 95 machines up through Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows 7, and now my second Windows 10 PC.
 
My 1st ever concert was August 12, 1966, Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut - a day before my 14th birthday. Sergio & Brasil '66 opened the show for Herb & TJB. I had been a big fan of Herb's Brass for over two years by then, but had never heard of Sergio. Not only did I get hooked on Sergio's first A&M album , but I found Sergio's earlier recorded work and many other Brazilian artists as well. My collection is full of great memories! Your photos are wonderful rememberances.
 
Glad you liked them. Had to crop them like crazy and reduce resolution from 300 dpi to 200 in order to meet the max file size parameter (getting better with this stuff!). Here is the program from that event, signed by all except Jose Soares for some reason which escapes me. Note Janis's spelling of 'Brasil' with a 'Z', for which I'm sure we'll all forgive her for.....almost 50(!) years on...


'...State Fair 1.jpg State Fair 2.jpg
 
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