Singer songwriter and composer Milton Nascimento is revered in his native Brazil for his ability to traverse genres having recorded everything from samba to folk, Bossa Nova to pop and jazz. He’s worked with everyone from Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock to Duran Duran and here he reinterprets some of his most famous recordings alongside Frenchmen Stephane and Lionel Belamondo and arranger Christophe Del Sasso. Orchestral, jazz, salsa it’s all mixed in so well that it comes across like a Brazilian sketches of spain with Nascimento’s worn falsetto over the top. Ravel’s gentle Bereuse slides effortlessly into Malilia a gentle cocktail jazz groove like they were made to be together and it’s these easy links that shouldn’t even work on paper, that are the story of this collaboration. It’s pretty much a tribute album to Nascimento from the Belomondo’s, except they invited the man himself to play and sing along. With Nascimento’s acoustic guitar and vocals alongside the fluglehorn and trumpet of the Belmondo’s upwards of thirteen musicians contributed to this album and possibly double the amount of instruments. It’s such a unique brew, yet not willfully so, the music is unexpected without being difficult or jarring, if anything the music evokes a feeling of grandeur that we are celebrating one of the legends of Brazilian music.
Bob Baker Fish
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