Who recorded it first
Mas que Nada
Not a Sérgio Mendes & Brasil ’66 original — Jorge Ben wrote it and sang lead on the first recording, made in Rio for the bandleader Zé Maria
Jorge Ben ↗ wrote it and sang lead on the first recording; Sérgio Mendes & Brasil ’66’s 1966 version is a cover. Outside Brazil the song is filed under Mendes, whose A&M single carried it onto the American charts, but he neither wrote it nor recorded it first. Both of this page’s sources agree the earliest session was not Ben’s own: it was cut for the bandleader Zé Maria (an organist, per the Brazilian discography), for the album Tudo Azul — Bossa Nova e Balanço (given as “Bossa E Balanço” on Wikipedia), with Ben singing lead. They disagree on when — Wikipedia says 1962, without a citation; a detailed Brazilian discography places the session in early 1963, after Zé Maria heard Ben’s songs at the Rio club Bottle’s — and on release order: Continental held the Zé Maria album until September 1963, by which time Ben’s own re-recording with Os Copa 5 had already been issued as a single. So the first recording carries Zé Maria’s name and Ben’s voice; the first record the public could buy was Ben’s.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released The first recording of the song was made for the bandleader Zé Maria’s album Tudo Azul — Bossa Nova e Balanço, with Jorge Ben on lead vocal, but Continental held that album back until September 1963 (PPL 12079). What reached the public first was Ben’s own re-recording, titled “Mas, que Nada!”: the Brazilian discography dates it to a Continental single issued about May or June 1963 (catalogue 78-273, with “Por Causa de Você, Menina” as the A-side), reissued in the same recordings by Philips in July 1963 (P-61.208-H) and used to open his Philips debut album Samba Esquema Novo in late September 1963 (P 632.161 L). Wikipedia instead dates that album to 10 January 1963. We could not reconcile the two accounts.
Charted No chart position is documented for the Brazilian release — the numbers attached to this song all belong to the covers. Brazilian sources simply describe it as the hit that launched Ben’s career at home.
The paper trail
Wikipedia’s article on Samba Esquema Novo ↗ dates Jorge Ben’s Philips debut to 10 January 1963, produced by Armando Pittigliani, and states that it “includes the original recording of the international hit ‘Mas que Nada.’” The track is listed first, at 3:02.
The song’s own Wikipedia article ↗ complicates that: it says the song was “originally recorded in 1962 by” the bandleader Zé Maria, on Tudo Azul — Bossa E Balanço, with Jorge Ben singing lead. No citation is attached to that sentence, which is why this page is filed as disputed rather than settled.
A Brazilian discography post ↗ gives the fullest account and reaches a different conclusion: the Zé Maria album carried the first recordings but was “released by Continental only in September 1963 after the songs became famous” (PPL 12079), by which time Ben’s own single had already appeared on Continental and been reissued by Philips.
The same Wikipedia article carries a section on an earlier record that the popular story leaves out: in 1958 the Brazilian artist José Prates recorded “Nanã Imborô” for the album Tam… Tam… Tam…! (Polydor Brasil LPNG 4.016), a track that “features the underlying melody and vocalizations later used by Jorge Ben” and further highlighted in the Mendes arrangement. Reissues credit “Nanã Imborô” to Miecio Askanasy, José Prates and Ivan de Paula. It is a different song, not a recording of “Mas que Nada”, and no source disputes that Ben wrote his own — but it is the earliest recorded appearance of the melodic material.
The MusicBrainz search API returns a Jorge Ben recording of “Mas, que nada!” at 182,333 ms (3:02) attached to the 1963 release Samba esquema novo — matching the album track length and giving a stable identifier for the original as distinct from Ben’s later re-recordings and the Mendes versions.
“Mas que nada” on Wikipedia — writer, first recordings and the full cover historyKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
What people get wrong
The song is so tied to one 1966 American single that its Brazilian origin has effectively vanished outside Brazil. Here is what the sources actually support.
Sérgio Mendes & Brasil ’66
Their A&M single reached number 47 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number four on Easy Listening, and Wikipedia notes it is “better known than Jorge Ben’s original and, to many, the definitive version.” It is a cover.
Jorge Ben
Every source consulted credits the composition to Jorge Ben. Mendes has never been credited as a writer of it.
Zé Maria, with Jorge Ben on lead vocals
Both sources agree the earliest session was Zé Maria’s album Tudo Azul — Bossa Nova e Balanço (given as “Bossa E Balanço” on Wikipedia), with Ben singing lead — not Ben’s own date. They disagree on the year: Wikipedia says 1962, without a citation; a Brazilian discography places the session in early 1963. Continental did not issue the album until September 1963, after Ben’s own re-recording had already appeared on a single, so Ben’s is the first version the public could hear.
José Prates, “Nanã Imborô”
Wikipedia notes that Prates’ 1958 recording for Tam… Tam… Tam…! carries the underlying melody and vocalisations later used by Ben and highlighted in the Mendes arrangement. It is credited to Miecio Askanasy, José Prates and Ivan de Paula, and it is a different song — not a recording of “Mas que Nada”, and no source disputes Ben’s authorship.
The 2006 Black Eyed Peas version
Mendes re-cut the song with the Black Eyed Peas in 2006; it topped charts in Hungary and the Netherlands and reached number six in the UK. It is a re-recording of a cover, two steps from the source.
Jorge Ben wrote “Mas que Nada” and sang lead on the first recording, made for Zé Maria in Rio; his own re-recording was the first to reach the public, in 1963. Sérgio Mendes & Brasil ’66 covered it in 1966.
Context
How a Rio single became an American standard
The correction that matters is easy: Jorge Ben wrote the song and recorded it in Brazil before Sérgio Mendes ever touched it. The harder question is why almost nobody outside Brazil knows that. Part of the answer is distribution. Ben’s record was a Brazilian release on Philips, sung entirely in Portuguese, aimed at a domestic audience that made it a hit at home. Mendes’ version was made in Los Angeles, produced by Herb Alpert, and pushed by A&M into the American singles market — a machine Ben’s original was never plugged into.
The other part is that the Mendes record kept re-arriving. A 1998 Nike commercial built around the 1966 recording put it back in front of a generation that had never heard it, and in 2006 Mendes re-cut it with the Black Eyed Peas, topping charts in Hungary and the Netherlands and reaching number six in the UK. Each revival attached the song more firmly to his name. Meanwhile the earliest chapter — the Zé Maria session, where Ben sang lead on someone else’s album before he had a record of his own — is barely known even in Brazil.
The disputed chronology, step by step
- Jorge Ben writes “Mas, que Nada!” and is performing it around Rio in the early 1960s.
- The organist and bandleader Zé Maria records it for his album Tudo Azul — Bossa Nova e Balanço, with Ben singing lead — the first recording, on both sources’ accounts. They disagree on when: Wikipedia dates it to 1962, without a citation, while the Brazilian discography puts the session in early 1963, after Zé Maria heard Ben’s songs while playing the Rio club Bottle’s with Os Copa 5. The discography also dates the album’s Continental release to September 1963 (catalogue PPL 12079), held back until the song was already famous. So the two accounts disagree on the session year as well as on issue order.
- Jorge Ben re-records the song under his own name, and this is the version the public hears first. Wikipedia gives 10 January 1963 on Philips, as the opening track of Samba Esquema Novo; the same Brazilian discography instead places a Continental single around May–June 1963 (78-273), a Philips reissue of the same recordings in July 1963, and the Philips album in late September 1963.
- Other Brazilian acts cover it almost immediately: Tamba Trio in 1963, Luis Carlos Vinhas in 1964.
- 1966: Sérgio Mendes & Brasil ’66 release their version on A&M. It reaches number 47 on the US Billboard Hot 100, number four on Easy Listening and number 54 in Canada, and becomes the version most of the world knows.
- 1998: a Nike commercial using the 1966 Mendes recording restores it to global circulation. 2006: Mendes re-records it with the Black Eyed Peas, reaching number six in the UK and number one in Hungary and the Netherlands.
Ben made the record. Mendes made it travel.