mick laBriola

International music icon, Sergio Mendes dead after battling long-term COVID

Music legend Sergio Mendes died Thursday September 5th 2024 after battling the side effects of long-term COVID-19 over the last several months. He was 83. Mendes died in Los Angeles with his wife and musical partner for the past 54 years, Gracinha Leporace Mendes by his side, along with their loving children, according to a post made on the singer’s Instagram. The musician was known as being “one of the most internationally successful Brazilian artists of all time,” according to the post. He recorded more than 35 albums many of which became gold or platinum. “Mendes, a three-time Grammy Award winner and Oscar nominee, leaves us with an incredible musical legacy from more than six decades of a unique sound …,” the post read. His last performance was in November 2023, when his concerts sold out in Paris, London and Barcelona. NPR reported in 2020 that Mendes helped initiate the bossa nova movement and enhanced the popularity of Brazilian music through his band, Brazil ‘66. Fans might be most familiar with the artist’s top song on Spotify, “Mas Que Nada” which has nearly 23 million views on the app. Overall, Mendes has 5.6 million monthly listeners.  Antonio Jobim, a Brazilian composer who worked with Mendes on an album in 1976 responded to the announcement of Mendes’ death on Instagram. “Thanks for everything Sergio Mendes,” the composer said. Mendes was born in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro’s sister city, and studied classical music at a conservatory before joining jazz groups. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began playing Bossa Nova as the genre was heating up in Rio’s nightclub scene with Antonio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto and others. In 1962, they traveled to New York for a Bossa Nova festival at Carnegie Hall. During the trip, Cannonball Adderley invited Mendes to collaborate on the album “Cannonball Adderley and The Bossa Rio Sextet,” leading to his first American record, “The Swinger from Rio,” after signing with Atlantic Records.

Bruce Palmer (September 9, 1946 – October 1, 2004) was a Canadian musician best known as the bassist in the folk rock band Buffalo Springfield, who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.

Palmer was born in Liverpool, Nova Scotia, later moving with his family to Toronto, Ontario, where in the early 1960s he began pursuing a musical career. He started out playing with Robbie Lane and the Disciples, then graduated to a local, otherwise all-black group fronted by Billy Clarkson. Next came British invasion-inspired Jack London & The Sparrows (which, after Palmer left, evolved into Steppenwolf). In early 1965 he left to join The Mynah Birds where he first met Neil Young who was playing lead guitar in the band. The Mynah Birds, fronted by future funk legend Rick James, had a bright future and were signed to the prestigious Motown Records to do some demo recordingsbefore it was discovered that James was actually in Toronto to avoid serving in Vietnam with the United States Navy, from which he had gone AWOL. A planned single, “It’s My Time” b/w “Go On and Cry”, was withdrawn just prior to its scheduled release by Motown. Both sides of this single were included in the 2006 box set “The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 6: 1966”, released in a limited edition of 6000 by Universal label Hip-O-Select, marking the first time any of the 1966 Motown recordings by the Mynah Birds had seen the light of day.

Hoyt Stoddard Curtin (September 9, 1922 – December 3, 2000) was an American composer and music producer, the primary musical director for the Hanna-Barberaanimation studio from its beginnings with The Ruff & Reddy Show in 1957 until his retirement in 1989, except from 1965 to 1972, when the primary music director was Ted Nichols. Curtin was a native of Downey, California, and had one son, Chris, with his wife Elizabeth.

In the 1950s Curtin was an in-demand composer for TV commercials. He first met William Hanna and Joseph Barbera when he worked on a Schlitz beer commercial they were producing for MGM in 1957.

Elvin Ray Jones (September 9, 1927 – May 18, 2004 Pontiac, MI) was an American jazz drummer of the post-bop era. Most famously a member of John Coltrane‘s quartet, with whom he recorded from late 1960 to late 1965, Jones appeared on such albums as My Favorite Things, A Love Supreme, Ascension and Live at Birdland. After 1966, Jones led his own trio, and later larger groups under the name The Elvin Jones Jazz Machine. His brothers Hank and Thad were also celebrated jazz musicians with whom he occasionally recorded. Elvin was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1995. In his The History of Jazz, jazz historian and critic Ted Gioia calls Jones “one of the most influential drummers in the history of jazz”. He was also ranked at Number 23 on Rolling Stone magazine’s “100 Greatest Drummers of All Time”.

Ronald Charles McKernan (September 8, 1945 – March 8, 1973), known as Pigpen, was an American musician. He was a founding member of the San Francisco band the Grateful Dead and played in the group from 1965 to 1972.

McKernan grew up heavily influenced by African-American music, particularly the blues, and enjoyed listening to his father’s collection of records and taught himself how to play harmonica and piano. He began socializing around the San Francisco Bay Area, becoming friends with Jerry Garcia. After the pair had played in various folk and jug bands, McKernan suggested they form an electric group, which became the Grateful Dead. He was the band’s original frontman and played harmonica and electric organ, but Garcia and bassist Phil Lesh‘s influences on the band became increasingly stronger as they embraced psychedelic rock. McKernan struggled to keep up with the changing music, causing the group to hire keyboardist Tom Constanten, with McKernan’s contributions essentially limited to vocals, harmonica, and percussion from November 1968 to January 1970. He continued to be a frontman in concert for some numbers, including his interpretations of Bobby Bland‘s “Turn On Your Love Light” and the Rascals‘ “Good Lovin’“.

Unlike the other members of the Grateful Dead, McKernan avoided psychedelic drugs, preferring to drink alcohol (namely whiskey and flavored fortified wine). By 1971, his health had been affected by alcoholism and liver damage and doctors advised him to stop touring. Following a hiatus, he resumed touring with the group in December 1971 but was forced to retire from touring altogether in June 1972. McKernan was found dead of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage on March 8, 1973, aged 27, and is buried at Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto.

Charles “Specs” Wright (September 8, 1927 – February 6, 1963) was an American jazz drummer born in Philadelphia.

Wright played drums in an Army band until his discharge in 1947. Following this he played in a group with Jimmy Heath and Howard McGhee. In 1949 he joined Dizzy Gillespie‘s band alongside John Coltrane, remaining until it disbanded in mid-1950. Later in 1950 he was a member of Gillespie’s sextet with Coltrane, Jimmy Heath, Percy Heath, and Milt Jackson. In the 1950s, Wright played with Earl Bostic, Kenny Drew, Cannonball Adderley, Art Blakey, and Carmen McRae, and gigged locally in Philadelphia. He was with Hank Mobley in 1958 with his septet alongside Billy Root, Curtis Fuller, Ray Bryant, Tommy Bryant, and Lee Morgan. Following this Wright played with Sonny Rollins, Betty Carter, Red Garland, Coleman Hawkins, and Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. He died in 1963. He was interred in Beverly National Cemetery in Beverly, New Jersey.

Wilbur Bernard Ware (September 8, 1923 – September 9, 1979) was an American jazzdouble bassist. He was a regular bassist for the Riverside record label in the 1950s, and recorded regularly in that decade with Johnny Griffin, Kenny Dorham, Kenny Drew, and Thelonious Monk. He also appeared on records released by J.R. Monterose, Toots Thielemans, Sonny Clark, Tina Brooks, Zoot Sims, and Grant Green, among others.

Ware grew up in Chicago where he taught himself to play drums, banjo, bass while playing at church. In the 1940s, he worked with Stuff Smith, Sonny Stitt, and Roy Eldridge. He recorded with Sun Ra in the early 1950s. Later in the 1950s, settling in New York City, Ware played with Eddie Vinson, Art Blakey, and Buddy DeFranco. His only album recorded as a leader and released during his lifetime was The Chicago Sound, from 1957 when he worked for Riverside. He made jazz instructional albums for Music Minus One. In 1958, Ware was one of 57 jazz musicians to appear in the photograph A Great Day in Harlem. Ware’s addiction to narcotics resulted in his return to Chicago in 1963, and then to a period of incarceration. He was inactive musically for about six years. In 1969, Ware played with Clifford Jordan, Elvin Jones and Sonny Rollins.^[2] He died from emphysema in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1979

Mark Ware Isham (born September 7, 1951) is an American musician and composer. A trumpeter and keyboardist, Isham works in a variety of genres, including jazz and electronic. He is also a prolific and acclaimed composer of film scores, and has scored over 200 film and television productions since his debut in 1983.

Isham is a nine-time Grammy Award nominee, winning Best New Age Album for his 1990 self-titled album. He was nominated for an Academy Award for A River Runs Through It (1992), and a Golden Globe Award for Nell (1994). He has also been nominated for six Primetime Emmy Awards, winning Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music for EZ Streets.

Christine Ellen Hynde (born September 7, 1951 Akron, OH) is an American-British musician. She is a founding member and the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the rock band The Pretenders, and one of the band’s two remaining original members alongside drummer Martin Chambers. She is the only continuous member of the band, appearing on every studio album.

Hynde formed the Pretenders in Hereford, England in 1978, with Pete Farndon, James Honeyman-Scott and Chambers. She has also recorded a number of songs with other musicians including Frank Sinatra, Cher and UB40. She recorded her first solo album, Stockholm, in 2014. Hynde was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 as a member of the Pretenders.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzCPYWyd9v4