Milton Nascimento
Encyclopedia
Milton Nascimento is a prominent Brazil
ian singer-songwriter
and guitarist
.
, in the state of Minas Gerais
.
Nascimento was an occasional DJ
on a radio station that his father once ran. He lived in the boroughs of Laranjeiras
and Tijuca
in Rio de Janeiro.
In the early stages of his career, Nascimento played in two samba
groups: Evolussamba and Sambacana. In 1963, he moved to Belo Horizonte
, where his friendship with Lô Borges led to the Clube da Esquina
("corner club") movement. Members included Beto Guedes, Toninho Horta
, Wagner Tiso
, and Flávio Venturini, with whom he shared compositions and melodies. One composition was "Canção do Sal", which was first interpreted by Elis Regina
in 1966 and led to a television appearance with Nascimento. The collective, as well as some others, released Clube da Esquina in 1972. Several hit singles were also released.
Nascimento is famous for his falsetto
and tonal range, as well for highly acclaimed songs such as "Maria, Maria", "Canção da América" ("Song from America"/"Unencounter"), "Travessia", "Bailes da Vida" and "Coração de Estudante" ("Student's Heart"). The lyrics remember the funeral of the student Edson Luís, killed by police officers in 1968. The song became the hymn
for the Diretas Já
social-political campaign in 1984, was played at the funeral
of the late President of Brazil
Tancredo Neves
the next year, and was also played at Ayrton Senna
's funeral.
While his reputation within Brazil was firmly established with his Clube da Esquina works, Nascimento's international breakthrough came with his appearance on jazz
saxophonist
Wayne Shorter
's 1974 album Native Dancer
. This led to widespread acclaim, and collaborations with stars such as Paul Simon
, Cat Stevens
, George Duke
and Quincy Jones
. Angelus (1994) features appearances by Pat Metheny
, Ron Carter
, Herbie Hancock
, Jack DeJohnette
, Nana Vasconcelos
, Jon Anderson
, James Taylor
, and Peter Gabriel
. Through his friendship with guitarist Warren Cuccurullo
, Nascimento came to work with the pop rock
band Duran Duran
in 1993. Nascimento co-wrote and performed the song "Breath After Breath", featured on the band's 1993 album Duran Duran
. He also performed with the band in concert when they toured in Brazil in support of that album.
In 1996, Nascimento contributed the song "Dancing" to the AIDS-Benefit Album Red Hot + Rio
produced by the Red Hot Organization
.
In 2004, he worked with the brazilian Heavy Metal band Angra, in the song "Late Redemption". The song is in the Temple Of Shadows album.
He is currently collaborating with Jason Mraz
on the latter's upcoming album.
Compilations
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian singer-songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
and guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
.
Biography
Nascimento's mother was the maid Maria Nascimento. As a baby, Milton Nascimento was adopted by his mother's former employers: the couple Josino Brito Campos, a banker employee, mathematics teacher and electronic technician; and Lília Silva Campos, a music teacher and choir singer. When he was 18 months old, Nascimento's biological mother died, and he moved with his adopted parents to the city of Três PontasTrês Pontas
Três Pontas is a city and municipality in southern Minas Gerais state, Brazil. The population in 2007 was 51,121 inhabitants in a total area of 689 km²....
, in the state of Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais
Minas Gerais is one of the 26 states of Brazil, of which it is the second most populous, the third richest, and the fourth largest in area. Minas Gerais is the Brazilian state with the largest number of Presidents of Brazil, the current one, Dilma Rousseff, being one of them. The capital is the...
.
Nascimento was an occasional DJ
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
on a radio station that his father once ran. He lived in the boroughs of Laranjeiras
Laranjeiras
Laranjeiras is an upper-middle-class neighborhood located in the Zona Sul area of Rio de Janeiro. Primarily residential, It is one of the city's oldest neighborhoods, having been founded in the 17th century, with the construction of country houses in the valley located around the Carioca River,...
and Tijuca
Tijuca
Tijuca is a neighbourhood of the Northern Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It comprises the region of Saens Peña and Afonso Pena squares. According to the 2000 Census, the district has close to 150,000 inhabitants...
in Rio de Janeiro.
In the early stages of his career, Nascimento played in two samba
Samba
Samba is a Brazilian dance and musical genre originating in Bahia and with its roots in Brazil and Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions. It is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival...
groups: Evolussamba and Sambacana. In 1963, he moved to Belo Horizonte
Belo Horizonte
Belo Horizonte is the capital of and largest city in the state of Minas Gerais, located in the southeastern region of Brazil. It is the third largest metropolitan area in the country...
, where his friendship with Lô Borges led to the Clube da Esquina
Clube da Esquina
Clube da Esquina was a Brazilian music artists collective, originating in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. It is also the name of a double album from 1972...
("corner club") movement. Members included Beto Guedes, Toninho Horta
Toninho Horta
Toninho Horta is a virtuoso electric and nylon-string guitar player; his music could be defined as Brazilian music.He has developed his own very personal style...
, Wagner Tiso
Wagner Tiso
Wagner Tiso Veiga is a musician, arranger, conductor, pianist and composer from Brazil.-Biography:Tiso learned music theory with Paulo Moura and specialised in keyboards. In 1970, he joined Som Imaginário, working with Milton Nascimento. Tiso and Nascimento were then together in Clube da Esquina,...
, and Flávio Venturini, with whom he shared compositions and melodies. One composition was "Canção do Sal", which was first interpreted by Elis Regina
Elis Regina
Elis Regina Carvalho Costa, known simply as Elis Regina was an important singer of Brazilian popular music. She became nationally renowned in 1965, after singing Arrastão in the first edition of TV Excelsior festival song contest, and soon joined O Fino da Bossa, a television program on TV Record...
in 1966 and led to a television appearance with Nascimento. The collective, as well as some others, released Clube da Esquina in 1972. Several hit singles were also released.
Nascimento is famous for his falsetto
Falsetto
Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...
and tonal range, as well for highly acclaimed songs such as "Maria, Maria", "Canção da América" ("Song from America"/"Unencounter"), "Travessia", "Bailes da Vida" and "Coração de Estudante" ("Student's Heart"). The lyrics remember the funeral of the student Edson Luís, killed by police officers in 1968. The song became the hymn
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
for the Diretas Já
Diretas Já
Diretas Já Now) was a civil unrest movement which, in 1984, demanded direct presidential elections in Brazil.-Participants of the movement: The movement brought together diverse elements of Brazilian society. Participants came from a broad spectrum of political parties, trade unions, civil,...
social-political campaign in 1984, was played at the funeral
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
of the late President of Brazil
President of Brazil
The president of Brazil is both the head of state and head of government of the Federative Republic of Brazil. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the Brazilian Armed Forces...
Tancredo Neves
Tancredo Neves
Tancredo de Almeida Neves, SFO more commonly Tancredo Neves was a Brazilian politician. He was born in São João del Rey, in the state of Minas Gerais, of mostly Portuguese, but also Austrian descent and graduated in law. The Neves family name comes from an Azorean great great grandfather...
the next year, and was also played at Ayrton Senna
Ayrton Senna
Ayrton Senna da Silva was a Brazilian racing driver. A three-time Formula One world champion, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time...
's funeral.
While his reputation within Brazil was firmly established with his Clube da Esquina works, Nascimento's international breakthrough came with his appearance on jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
saxophonist
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...
's 1974 album Native Dancer
Native Dancer (album)
Native Dancer is the fifteenth album by Wayne Shorter. It is a collaboration with Brazilian musician Milton Nascimento, featuring some of his most acclaimed compositions, including "Ponta de Areia" and "Miracle of The Fishes"...
. This led to widespread acclaim, and collaborations with stars such as Paul Simon
Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...
, Cat Stevens
Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam , commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam....
, George Duke
George Duke
George Duke is a multi-faceted American musician, known as a keyboard pioneer, composer, singer and producer in both jazz and popular mainstream musical genres. He has worked with numerous acclaimed artists as arranger, music director, writer and co-writer, record producer and professor of music...
and Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
. Angelus (1994) features appearances by Pat Metheny
Pat Metheny
Patrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...
, Ron Carter
Ron Carter
Ron Carter is an American jazz double-bassist. His appearances on over 2,500 albums make him one of the most-recorded bassists in jazz history, along with Milt Hinton, Ray Brown and Leroy Vinnegar. Carter is also an acclaimed cellist who has recorded numerous times on that...
, Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer. He is one of the most influential jazz drummers of the 20th century, due to extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians like Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett and Sonny...
, Nana Vasconcelos
Naná Vasconcelos
Naná Vasconcelos is a Brazilian Latin jazz percussionist, vocalist and berimbau player, most notable for his works with Pat Metheny, Don Cherry, Egberto Gismonti, and Gato Barbieri....
, Jon Anderson
Jon Anderson
Jon Anderson is an English singer-songwriter and musician best known as the former lead vocalist in the progressive rock band Yes...
, James Taylor
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
, and Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
. Through his friendship with guitarist Warren Cuccurullo
Warren Cuccurullo
Warren Bruce Cuccurullo in Brooklyn, New York is an American rock musician who worked with Frank Zappa, was a founding member of Missing Persons, and has been a long term member of Duran Duran. He also has some notoriety in the porn industry after making nude appearances in a magazine and...
, Nascimento came to work with the pop rock
Pop rock
Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...
band Duran Duran
Duran Duran
Duran Duran are an English band, formed in Birmingham in 1978. They were one of the most successful bands of the 1980s and a leading band in the MTV-driven "Second British Invasion" of the United States...
in 1993. Nascimento co-wrote and performed the song "Breath After Breath", featured on the band's 1993 album Duran Duran
Duran Duran (1993 album)
Duran Duran is the seventh studio album and the second self-titled album by Duran Duran, released on 23 February 1993. The cover art by Nick Egan features wedding photos from the parents of the four band members.Recording of the album was completed in early 1992 with an impending release by...
. He also performed with the band in concert when they toured in Brazil in support of that album.
In 1996, Nascimento contributed the song "Dancing" to the AIDS-Benefit Album Red Hot + Rio
Red Hot + Rio
Red Hot + Rio is a compilation album produced by Paul Heck as part of the Red Hot AIDS Benefit Series intended to promote AIDS awareness. This installment is a contemporary tribute to the Bossa nova sound, especially the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim...
produced by the Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization
Red Hot Organization is a not-for-profit, 501 3, international organization dedicated to fighting AIDS through pop culture.Since its inception in 1989, over 400 artists, producers and directors have contributed to over 15 compilation albums, related television programs and media events to raise...
.
In 2004, he worked with the brazilian Heavy Metal band Angra, in the song "Late Redemption". The song is in the Temple Of Shadows album.
He is currently collaborating with Jason Mraz
Jason Mraz
Jason Thomas Mraz , also known as Mr. AZ and Mr. Raz, is an American singer-songwriter. Mraz released his debut album, Waiting for My Rocket to Come, which contained the hit single "The Remedy ", in 2002, but it was not until the release of his second album, "Mr. A-Z", in 2005, that Mraz achieved...
on the latter's upcoming album.
Discography
- 1967: Milton Nascimento (a.k.a. Travessia)
- 1968: Courage
- 1969: Milton Nascimento
- 1970: Milton
- 1972: Clube da Esquina
- 1973: Milagre dos Peixes
- 1974: Native DancerNative Dancer (album)Native Dancer is the fifteenth album by Wayne Shorter. It is a collaboration with Brazilian musician Milton Nascimento, featuring some of his most acclaimed compositions, including "Ponta de Areia" and "Miracle of The Fishes"...
(with Wayne ShorterWayne ShorterWayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...
) - 1975: Minas
- 1976: Geraes
- 1976: Milton (Raça)
- 1978: Clube da Esquina 2
- 1978: Travessia (reissue of the 1967 record)
- 1979: Journey to Dawn
- 1980: Sentinela
- 1981: Caçador de MimCaçador de mimCaçador de mim is a 1981 album by the Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento. It includes some of the hits of the artist, such as "Caçador de mim" and "Nos bailes da vida".-Track listing:-Personnel:* Milton Nascimento: vocals, acoustic guitar...
- 1982: Anima
- 1982: Ponta de Areia
- 1982: Missa dos Quilombos
- 1983: Ao Vivo
- 1985: Encontros e Despedidas
- 1986: A Barca dos Amantes
- 1987: Yauaretê
- 1989: Miltons
- 1990: Cancão da America
- 1990: Txai
- 1992: Noticias do Brasil
- 1993: Tres Pontas
- 1993: Angelus
- 1994: O Planeta Blue Na Estrada do Sol
- 1996: Amigo
- 1997: NascimentoNascimento (album)Nascimento is an album by Milton Nascimento, released through Warner Bros. Records in 1997. In 1998, the album earned Nascimento the Grammy Award for Best World Music Album.-Track listing:# "Louva-A-Deus " – 3:07...
- 1998: Tambores de Minas
- 1999: Crooner
- 2000: Nos Bailes Da Vida
- 2000: Gil & Milton (with Gilberto GilGilberto GilGilberto Passos Gil Moreira , better known as Gilberto Gil or , is a Brazilian singer, guitarist, and songwriter, known for both his musical innovation and political commitment...
) - 2002: Oratorio
- 2003: Pieta
- 2003: Music for Sunday Lovers
- 2005: O Coronel e o Lobisomem
- 2007: Milagre Dos Peixes: Ao Vivo
- 2008: Novas BossasNovas BossasNovas Bossas is a studio album by Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento, released on 5 March 2008, recorded in partnership with the Jobim Trio, a group of musicians composed of Daniel Jobim on Piano, Paulo Jobim on guitar and Paulo Braga on drums and percussion, the last two being long-time Tom...
- 2008: Belmondo & Milton Nascimento (B-Flat recordings)
- 2010: ...E a Gente Sonhando
Compilations
- 2000: Maria Maria / Ultimo Trem (Far Out RecordingsFar Out RecordingsFar Out Recordings is a UK-based record label specializing is the music of Brazil.The label released a Milton Nascimento performance of two ballets.-Artists:*Aleuda*Antonio Adolfo*Arthur Verocai*Azymuth*Binario*Celia Vaz*Clara Moreno*Danny Wheeler...
, Soundtracks to 2 Brazilian balletBalletBallet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
s)
External links
- Official site Interview with Nascimento, 1988
- Milton Nascimento: 12 Essential Performances by Ted Gioia (jazz.com)