Sergio Mendes was a star in Brazil before Brasil '66, starting as a jazz/bossa pianist. His group got its start playing with first local Brazilian performers (check out Rubens Bassini's "Ritmo Fantastico" from 1964 on the Whatmusic reissue label), and then American Bossa-inflected jazzers like Cannonball Adderley (Cannonball's Bossa Nova) and Herbie Mann (Do The Bossa Nova With) before hiring the great Wanda de Sah (aka Wanda Sah) for two fantastic albums on Capitol, Brasil '65 and Softly, before striking gold with Brasil '66, with Herb Alpert's wife Lani Hall on Alpert's A&M Records. His wife is Gracinha Leporace, who sang in the equally terrific group Bossa Rio for a couple of albums. Truly one of the great overlooked masters, one of the great and unmistakeable sounds of the 60s. And yeah, he's still got it.
Re: Detective Agency. I'm hearing straight early 90's Dinosaur Jr./Frank Black/Jesus and Mary Chain—albeit those bands' worst era—still a top notch batch of influences for today.
One of my favorite deep house cuts of all time is essentially the "hoot hoot" at the start of that Mendes cut and the shiny keyboard of Hall & Oates' "I Can't Go for That": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3p3Zdnm…