Sérgio Santos Mendes, pron. IPA: ['s?x?iu 's??tus 'm?'d?is], (born February 11, 1941 in Niterói, Brazil) is a Grammy Award-winning Brazilian musician. The child of a physician in Niterói, Brazil, Mendes attended the local conservatory with hopes of becoming a classical pianist. As his interest in jazz grew, he started playing in nightclubs in the late-1950s just as bossa nova, a jazz-inflected derivative of samba, was taking off. Mendes played with Antonio Carlos Jobim (regarded as a mentor) and many U.S. jazz musicians who toured Brazil.