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However much the country changes, certain things about Brazil seem to remain immutable: the crisp, glorious sand of the Copacabana, the beautiful women, the abrasive poverty of the favela shanty towns. And then, of course, there’s the music, the gaudy samba, the sultry sway of the bossa nova, the cheesy brashness of funk carioca.
There’s music everywhere in Brazil, and over the last 40 years a lot of it has been made by Milton Nascimento. The singer-songwriter is a superstar in his homeland, one of the long-time mainstays of MPB, or Brazilian popular music, with his own ideas about composition that nod toward the country’s past, but often look far beyond, as he shows all too clearly on his later release, Pietá (Savoy). There he moves between the cascading beauty of “A Femina Voz Do Cantor” and an adventurous cover of Herbie Hancock’s “Cantaloupe Island,” with many stops along the way, all held together by his silky voice. The album, he explains, “is a payback to the women who taught me to sing, and the great influence they had on me.”
Born in Rio de Janeiro, Nascimento was raised by his white adoptive parents in the interior Minas Geraes. It was there, in the town of Tres Pontes, that he discovered music.
“It used to be a mixture of sounds,” he remembers. “There was music from Brazilian blacks, Indians and whites. That gave a unique character to the state of Minas. It’s the Brazilian state most similar to other countries in Latin America.”
His mother played accordion and sang, and exposed the boy to all manner of singers, especially jazz greats like Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.
“When I was very small I only used to enjoy women singing,” Nascimento says. “I didn’t like male voices because I thought women could sing with their heart, and men only wanted to show strength and sing powerfully. And that taught me to sing with that female expression. I’d impersonate all the female singers, everyone you could mention, until one day I noticed my voice was beginning to change, when I was 13 or 14. I started running all over the place; I didn’t know what to do. I thought I was going to lose my heart. My parents didn’t say anything; they just wondered what was going on. It carried on until I was out in the backyard with my father, where he was repairing a car. The radio was playing, and I heard ‘Stella By Starlight,’ by Ray Charles. I kept running, but now it was because I was excited. Thank God, I thought, a man can sing with his heart!”
There never seemed to be a doubt that he’d become a musician. Taught to play the accordion by his mother, Nascimento began his apprenticeship, and once he turned 14, “I worked in clubs and bars in small towns. It was kind of like going to college for singing, learning in these small places. At the time people used to request songs from the crooner, so I learned music from everywhere. I was little different from everyone else, because there were a few songs I wouldn’t sing, even when they threatened to shoot me! Crooner (his 2000 Latin Grammy-winning album) was inspired by those times. In the beginning I couldn’t get into the clubs. I had to sneak in and arrange with people, stay in the background. Sometimes I had to give a little money to the police, but I managed it.”
At the age of 19 he moved to the state capital, Belo Horizonte, which proved to be a revelation for him. After the parochial surroundings of home, suddenly, “I was introduced to different musicians from different atmospheres, from samba, from jazz, from bossa nova, from pop music. It was only then that I found out that the things I sang and liked were completely different from everyone else. At one time I thought I was doing everything wrong.”
But he persisted, playing in clubs and continuing to write, slowly making a name for himself. A few tough years later he came to the attention of Elis Regina, then Brazil’s reigning songstress.
“We have lots of things in common,” he observed, “especially in being interested in discovering new people and finding new talent in music. Before I was known I’d already been invited to her house, to play and show songs to her. At the time she was like a queen to me, the best known Brazilian singer. Even to be there was such a big thing. Soon after she became my greatest interpreter, she musically adopted me. After I met her, all the songs I composed, all the lyrics I wrote, I did them thinking of her singing. I wasn’t writing for myself, everything was for her.”
She was responsible for his big break, recording his song “Cancao Do Sal” in 1966, making it a hit, and securing him a television showcase. After that boost, and a performance at the country’s International Song Festival the following year, he was well on his way to stardom.
Nascimento cemented his fame in 1972 with the Clube de Esquina record, a collaboration with Marcio Borges, Fernado Brant and Ronaldo Bastos, who still feature in his work. With three massive hits, all of which have gone on to become standards, it was the first big landmark in his career.
The second arrived three years later, when American saxophonist Wayne Shorter, then part of the seminal jazz fusion group Weather Report, invited Nascimento to guest on his Native Dancer disc.
Wayne asked if I wanted to bring any Brazilian musicians, and I said yes (legendary percussionist Airto Moreira was one of them). When I got to Los Angeles, Wayne had brought Herbie Hancock, a Central American guitarist and two pop session players. Gene Price produced it, who was working with the Rolling Stones. They kind of adopted me musically and adapted to my style, making it a lot richer. The combination of the two was magnificent. When I used to speak to the press, they always asked me what kind of music I played, and I’d say I didn’t know until Wayne Shorter invited me to work on the Native Dancer album. That record really showed America and the world what my music was all about. It opened the door for all kinds of music for me, and Wayne has a lot of the credit for that. The mix he put together for that record is the answer to what kind of music I play. But I was playing at a jazz festival in Denmark. The ads read, Miles Davis: Jazz, Weather Report: Progressive Jazz, someone else as rhythm and blues. Then it said Milton Nascimento: Milton. I used to think the Danes understood me very well!"
Now known internationally, Nascimento released a string of wonderful, often understated records that showcased his mellifluous voice and unique writing style. It was ineffably Brazilian in its use of melody with a subtly complex rhythmic underlay, yet refused easy classification. His songs were equally comfortable with jazz or pop, and he became a global critical favorite, with wins in a pair of downbeat polls and two Grammy nominations in the 1990s, one for the delicious Angelus, on which Shorter repaid the 1975 favor by guesting. It’s one that remains close to Nascimento’s heart. While “Every album has a lot to do with what I’m living and experiencing at the time, in recent years, I think Angelus is probably my favorite.”
With Pietá, Nascimento pays homage to his adoptive mother, Lilia, the woman who “took care of me during my whole life, together with Josino, my father. Hers was the first feminine voice I remember hearing.” It was time to remember her. “Everything I sing has to do with what I’m going through, and that’s true for writing and composing, too,” says Nascimento.
It’s a decidedly feminine album, soft but never pliable, with plenty of surprises, like the percussion that creeps in, then takes over “Casa Aberta,” for example. Originally issued two years ago in Brazil, it’s finding a belated American release, but like all great music, it’s timeless. Along with original and contemporary material—like so many Brazilians, Nascimento isn’t precious about only performing his own material, recognizing that he’s not the only person capable of writing a good song—Pietá finds Nascimento teaming once more with Herbie Hancock, on a version of the latter’s much-covered standard, “Cantaloupe Island.” It’s a piece that carries a great deal of resonance for him.
“When that came out, it was a special time for me. Brazil was under a military dictatorship. Things that could improve people’s spirits came very often through music. Herbie’s album came out, and I always wanted to record that song, and I finally had the chance.”
And, to repay the mentoring Elis Regina, Nascimento took the unprecedented step of inviting three new female singers to share the record with him: Maria Rita Marian, Marina Machado and Simone Guimaraes. “I was especially happy to discover Marina Machado,” he says. “She was the most faithful; she kept on traveling and performing with me for the last two and half years as I toured Pietá. She left her own career to appear with me.”
Although the album is old news in Brazil now, Nascimento hasn’t been resting on his laurels since its release. In addition to frequent touring, “I just finished doing the soundtrack for a Brazilian movie. I adored it, and I’d like to do many more. It’s been great working on that for the last few weeks. I’ll be producing Marina’s new album, which is due out this year. I’ve been to Japan, Africa, four times to Europe with Pietá.” I just want to keep on doing the same thing!”
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