A Bossa Nova, Multiculture, Everlasting Love Tale
/By Don Varyu
July 2022
ith the passage of years, it gets easier to see how seemingly innocuous moments can be life-changing. You don’t plan them. At the time, you may not even notice them. Nevertheless, those pivotal seconds can open new life paths. This is the story of how a series of such improbable instants connected three people who would change the history of modern music; and, oh yeah--it’s also an epic love story.
ergio Mendes was born in a well-to-do town directly across the bay from the fabled beaches of Rio de Janeiro. At age seven, he began playing piano in a classical music conservatory. He was dedicated to the keyboard, even though he was confined to only the classical genre. But, at age 13, a friend played him the masterpiece jazz album Take Five by Dave Brubeck. Mendes was smitten. And he wasn’t alone. At the same time, established Brazilian musicians had moved to New York to play with jazz legends. The result of those sessions was the quiet introduction of bossa nova in America, the mixture of traditional samba beats with contemporary jazz. The music began to surface, and in 1962 it was consecrated with a Bossa Nova concert at Carnegie Hall. It had arrived. And Mendes was anxious to become a part of it.
He was a natural organizer and purposeful arranger and a band manager. His goal was to construct a group that could move onto the Billboard charts in the U.S. The first breakthrough came when Atlantic records gave him his first recording contract. He vowed not to blow this chance; he diligently made records and went on tour, no venue too small. But nothing much happened.
Then a producer friend told him if he wanted to crack the U.S. market, he needed to use vocalists who also sang in English—same music, different language. He sat pondering this one night in Chicago after the very last tour stop that Atlantic agreed to fund. He’d hit a dead end. He disbanded his band, but he didn’t give up. He decided to create a new group in Los Angeles--but where would he find talented singers in both Portuguese and English?
t that time, Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood was a trimmed down version of the East Village in New York City. There were head shops and art galleries and lots of bell bottoms, long hair and tie-died shirts. It contained the very first Crate and Barrel store, and the famous Second City comedy club, the proving grounds for multiple generations of comedy giants (Bill Murray, John Belushi, Tina Fey, Steve Carrell, Mike Myers, Amy Poehler, Steven Colbert, Alan Alda, and others).
Old Town also had music—lots of music. The clubs sometimes booked semi-famous acts, but mostly offered gigs to up-and-coming local talent. On the very night in the very place where Mendes sat wrestling with plans for his future, a 19-year-old singer named Lani Hall took the stage. It was at a legendary spot called Mother’s. As she began, history started to shift. Mendes’ future came into focus. Hall’s voice was luminous, almost ethereal. She sang with incredible purity and a syrupy sweetness. (See YouTube link at end of story.) When she finished, he quickly walked up to her, explained who he was, and offered to sign her on the spot to be the lead singer in his new group. It would be called Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66. She was flattered; but also flustered. A move to L.A.? She tried to put him off by saying, “you’d have to ask my father.” He said, “fine.”
Lani Hall, c. 1966
So, the next day Mendes dutifully reported to the family apartment and pleaded his case. Hall’s father saw all the same red flags that any dad would. But he finally agreed, on one condition: if anything at all happened to upset Lani, she must promise to get on the next plane back to Chicago. He would pay. She never took him up.
And at this point, the rest of the love story seems predictable, doesn’t it? The beautiful voice and the talented arranger would fall in love and make beautiful music together. The rest would be history.
But that’s not at all what happened.
erb Alpert grew up in the Boyle Heights section of east Los Angeles. During his childhood, it was a parody of the “melting pot”, a diverse mix of Japanese, Mexican, Yugoslav, black, Jewish, Ukrainian and Russian enclaves. His father played mandolin and his mother taught violin. So, it was no surprise that Alpert would lean into music. He started lessons at age eight on his preferred instrument, the trumpet. He was very good at it, and other aspects of music as well. By his early 20’s, he had co-written Top 20 hits including Wonderful World for Sam Cooke. But he also had wider entertainment interests than the trumpet. He took vocal lessons and tried his hand at acting.
Alpert’s ride to stardom began during an innocent trip across the border to see the bullfights in Tijuana. The mariachi band playing before and during the fights that night moved him. How could he capture that sound on a record? He decided to form Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass—although the “brass” part was just a ruse. Unable to afford other players, he simply overdubbed his own varied versions with his original track. For one recording, he added bullfight crowd sound effects to a song called, The Lonely Bull. It unexpectedly shot to the top ten on the Billboard charts in 1962, and Alpert’s career took off. This, because of a random decision to drive to Tijuana.
At least one record from his group Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass (now with actual human bandmates), stayed among the top 10 albums for 81 straight weeks. At one point, Alpert had five different albums in the top 20—a feat that’s never been matched. In 1966, the band outsold the Beatles. Along the way, he also notched a #1 single as a vocalist, singing This Guy’s in Love With You. He’s still the only person ever to hit number one separately as both an instrumentalist and a singer.
Alpert kept playing, but also dove into the creation of A&M Records with friend Jerry Moss. It was envisioned as a casual camp where aspiring acts could work on their material at their own pace. Mendes says, “they wanted to come up with something different, to nurture the new artists. Not just for one record, but to build careers. And they did that.”
Over the years, A&M featured a diverse list or artists including Joan Baez, George Benson, the Carpenters, Elton John, Maroon 5, Sting, will.i.am, Suzanne Vega, Janet Jackson—and, as it turned out, Sergio Mendes and Brasil ‘66.
One of A&M’s distributors, in Seattle, heard a demo tape from this new bossa nova group and thought it was worth bringing to Alpert’s attention. So, he made a phone call and urged Alpert to listen. Since the group was already in L.A., it was easy to bring them in to A&M for an audition. Alpert recalls the moment he was walking down a hallway and head something being played behind the closed door to one of the studios. “I just fell in love with the sound,” he said. “I had never heard anything like it.” That one call made by a Seattle distributor changed lives.
But Alpert’s ardor for the music wasn’t the only love that bloomed that first day. Lani Hall had seen Alpert perform on TV, and says, “he was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.” Standing at the microphone that day, she said her stomach was in knots, and not just because of musical jitters. She could not believe that this “beautiful” man, Herb Alpert, would be listening to what she sang.
Herb Alpert, c. 1966
Hall must have done well, because Mendes was offered a contract. And with that, bossa nova was ready to finally explode across America. The group’s initial hit, Mas que nada, sung in Portuguese, had became the first worldwide hit for Brazilian music. After that, Hall (who dutifully learned Portuguese) sang along with a string of female singing partners, performing a novel way of vocalizing. With rare exception, the two sang exactly the same notes on exactly the same beat. It almost sounded like one single voice, but there was enough subtle variation between the two that the effect could be almost hypnotic.
Mendes doubled down. He says, “I’m a melody guy”, and that included the allure of melodies written by others. He started creating new arrangements for popular songs, adding an inventive bossa nova flavor that made them seem familiar but new. He redid Day Tripper and Fool on the Hill from the Beatles; Going Out of My Head from Little Anthony and the Imperials; Cole Porter’s Night and Day; Scarborough Fair from Simon and Garfunkel; and I Say a Little Prayer from Burt Bacharach.
America could not get enough. Seven of their songs wound up in the top ten on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary charts in just three years. By then, Hall says, she had fallen in love with Brazilian music, “…rich in rhythm, in texture, in depth; a cross between primitive and classical--like the dirt and the sky.” She was comfortable singing in two languages. It was a perfect fit. The formula was working wonderfully. And then the group hit a jarring speed bump. Hall was leaving.
ani Hall didn’t leave because of a dispute. Not because of a better offer. She left for love. Emotionally, she and Alpert had become intertwined. In Alpert, she found something she knew was lacking in her life…a hole that had to be filled. She says,
(Growing up) I had a very volatile household. I did not trust anybody. I did not believe in kindness or goodness. When I met Herb, I’d never met anyone that kind before. (At first) I just didn’t trust it. But the power of kindness is so transforming, and that transformed my life.
Here’s how Alpert describes that time:
Lani changed my life. I was not a happy guy…going through a divorce. I couldn’t even play my trumpet—it was not cooperating. She was able to see what I was feeling, and even I didn’t know what I was feeling. She is a genius.
Hall decided she didn’t want to risk the loss of their romance. By that time, Alpert was working full time in Los Angeles running the label, but Brasil ’66 was touring eleven months a year. She decided to stay home. Coincidentally or not, the band never repeated its initial years of success. But that didn’t stop them—they’re still going strong. Mendes is now 81. He’s just finished leading his band across Japan…and will continue the tour back home to America. In October, he’ll conclude this current schedule in Chicago—the same town where a chance encounter with Hall brought Bossa Nova to popularity in America.
ith earnings from his early Tijuana Brass hits in the 60’s, Alpert purchased a six-acre bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Malibu. He and Hall still live there. It’s where they raised their daughter. Both stay involved in the creation of music, but Alpert has primarily moved his focus to sculpture. Hall writes short stories. And more importantly, they run the Herb Alpert Foundation, which supports art in multiple forms. Its purpose is, “…to transform lives and allow us to recognize our shared humanity.” There’s a special emphasis: “our goal is to ensure that children of all backgrounds have early opportunities to encounter the arts in many forms and ways.”
Hall and Alpert, Malibu
mall moments can be decisive. What if Mendes had decided to sit in another club in Chicago that night in 1966? What if the distributor in Seattle had decided to call another label—would Hall and Alpert ever have met? What if Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 never existed?
Music would not have been as rich. Millions of fans would not have been moved in the same way. Kids at the foundation would not be seeing ways to express their own creative talents.
And Alpert probably would not sit overlooking the Pacific today with his wife of 47 years.
Editor’s note: if you’ve read this far, it’s only fair to provide examples of what Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66 sounded like. Historic links are below:
Mendes and Hall: Fool on the Hill, 1968
Alpert: Taste of Honey (on the Ed Sullivan show) 1965
Alpert and Hall: CBS Sunday Morning, 2011
Have a comment or thought on this? Just hit the Your Turn tab here or email us at mailbox@cascadereview.net to have your say.
