Keyboard virtuoso, composer and arranger, Sergio Mendes and his band Brasil 66 have been at the crux of the country's burgeoning music scene for many years. Integrating a multitude of Brazilian forms, including samba and bossa nova, with established jazz orchestration The Very Best Of double album is a definitive guide to the group's disparate musical history. Fruitful collaborations with Herb Alpert and his wife, vocalist Lani Hall, resulted in the recording of the Beatles' "Day Tripper" amongst others. Indeed, Mendes shows a prolific taste for Lennon and McCartney compositions which are scattered here between intuitive reworkings of some Brazilian masterpieces such as Jorge Ben's "Mas Que Nada", Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Triste" and Milton Nascimento's "Empty Faces". With a light, whimsical tone the tracks here provide fine entertainment of the cocktail party variety. --George Lees