The Black Eyed Peas & Sergio Mendes

Growing up in the 60's and 70's one of the first recording artist I was exposed to was Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. This cat and his music was so cool that a group of us planned to form our own Tijuana Brass right in the hub of old Waipahu aka Arthur Abe's house with one of those toy drumsets and a few trumpets and a trombone. Somehow we thought that was all we needed and with a little practice we'd be on our ways. Right.

Well, not only was the Tijuana Brass great to listen to on the family's portable record player from Sears Roebuck but Herb Alpert's albums had all these themes with lovely models on the cover. Classic was Herb Alpert's Whipped Cream album with a model on the cover in nothing but whipped cream.

Herb Alpert was not only a fine musician but had an eye for other great musicians as well. If the musicians were good enough for uncle Herb then they were good enough for me. So I happily listened to and followed other artists introduced to us by Herb including such talents as Julius Wetcher and the Baja Marimba Band and Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 which later became Brasil '67, Brasil '68 and eventually Brasil 2000.Sergio Mendes brought to us music with a Brazilian flavor and introduced us to unforgetable arrangements of hits made popular by songwriters/artist such as Simon and Garfunkel (Scarborough Fair) and the Beatles (Fool on the Hill). But of all the songs arranged and performed by Sergio Mendes and his entourage, Mas Que Nada stands out for me. Even though the lyrics were not in English it was just so cool to me.

Fast forward nearly forty years and the hip-hop group the Black Eyed Peas did a remake with Sergio Mendes of the hit Mas Que Nada. Click on the link below and enjoy the classic Sergio Mendes hit revisited. Man, it is just soooo cool!!!!

Link
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