This copy is ALIVE! The drums and percussion are powerful and punchy with lots of room around them, and the bass is PERFECTION. There’s plenty of whomp and lots of extension on the top end.
This side two really conveys a sense of the amazing performances of these great musicians. It’s rich, full, smooth, sweet, open, spacious — everything you’d expect from an A+++ / A+++ record.
Funky Brazilian Music For Audiophiles
This is one of my favorite albums, one which certainly belongs in any Audiophile’s collection. Better sound is hard to find — when you have the right pressing. Unfortunately those are pretty hard to come by. Most LPs are grainy, shrill, thin, veiled and full of compressor distortion in the louder parts: this is not a recipe for audiophile listening pleasure.
But we LOVE this album here at Better Records, and have since Day One. One of the first records I ever played for my good audio buddy Robert Pincus (Cisco Records) to demonstrate the sound of my system was Sergio’s syncopated version of Day Tripper off this album. That was close to twenty years ago [now more than 30], and I can honestly say I have never tired of this music in the intervening decades.
We’re glad to see that our customers share our enthusiasm for the band; note that there is not a single good sounding used Mendes record on the site at present (September ’08). They all seem to have sold, and most of the Hot Ones flew out of here.
[We do regular shootouts for the band’s albums, but their debut is tough to find in clean shape and it’s been years since we’ve had enough to play for a shootout.]
That Big Bruce Botnick Bottom End
The music is of course wonderful, but what separates Sergio from practically all of his ’60s contemporaries is the AMAZING SOUND of his recordings. The first album was recorded by the legendary Bruce Botnick, the man behind the superb recordings of The Doors, Love and others too numerous to mention. This, in my opinion, is his Masterpiece. The Doors albums Bruce recorded represent some of his best work, but what Doors album sounds as good as Sergio’s debut? I can’t name one.
One reason you have to hand the tallest trophy to Bruce for this album is that the arrangements are dramatically more complex here than in any comparable rock recording of the era. There are so many elements to juggle in the densest parts of the mix, with multiple lead vocal parts, often double-tracked; background vocals by Sergio and the girls coming from every location; keyboards, bass and drums; tons of percussion popping out all over the place — this is a rich tapestry of instruments and voices, stretching across the soundstage from wall to wall, with huge amounts of depth and layering from front to back.
Only the best copies are sufficiently transparent to allow the listener the privilege of hearing all the elements laid out clearly, each occupying a real three-dimensional space within the soundfield. When you hear one of those copies, you have to give Botnick his due. The man knew what he was doing. (Larry Levine who recorded the subsequent albums was no slouch either. Stillness is one of the ten best sounding records I have ever played, and that’s no exaggeration.)
Sergio Mendes and Brazil ’66 checks off many of our favorite boxes:
- It’s a personal favorite
- It’s a Masterpiece of rock and pop
- It’s a Demo Disc on big speakers that play at loud levels
- It’s part of the core collection of well recorded rock & pop albums
Want to find your own top quality copy?
Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that tend to win our shootouts.
Based on our experience, Sergio Mendes and Brazil ’66 sounds its best: