Milton Nascimento - Irmão de Fé (2019)

Raised in Minas Gerais, the singer, composer, and co-founder of the Clube da Esquina in Belo Horizonte helped invent sophisticated Brazilian Popular Music (MPB), while being nurtured by the best international musicians, with Wayne Shorter at the top of the list.

The Santa Tereza neighborhood of Belo Horizonte (the capital of Minas Gerais, southeast Brazil), is a cluster of narrow streets and old houses around the Duque de Daxias square. In the 1960s, the hill was an epicenter of bohemian activity with its many bistros, restaurants, and street musicians. Some of them used to gather at the corner of the Paraísopolis and Divínopolis streets, which were adorned with palm trees and bougainvilleas. They named their group after a club there: Clube da Esquina. All of them were in their twenties: Lô and Márcio Borges, Fernando Brant, Marilton, Beto Guedes, Flávio Venturini, Wagner Tiso, Toninho Horta, Tavinho Moura, and Milton Nascimento. From this street corner, they would go on to conquer first Brazil, and then the world.

The sweetness of tone expressed in Milton Nascimento’s voice contrasts with the pain he was exposed to from a young age. Like Jobim, Jorge Ben and Tim Maia, he was born in the Tijuca district of Rio de Janeiro. His mother was a poor domestic worker who was abandoned by her first love while pregnant. She contracted tuberculosis and died at a very young age. Milton was only two years old. He was taken in by his grandparents and finally adopted into a loving, middle-class, educated family. The father was a math teacher and a radio man and the mother sang and played the piano she had learned from Heitor Villa-Lobos. Though Milton was born in Rio, he grew up in Três Pontas (Minas Gerais) and is more of a Mineiro than a Carioca – more attached to the land, full of rustic folklore and workers songs, than seaside trivialities. “My first companion was the echo of the Minas Mountains,” he says. When I was a kid, I used to have a lot of fun with it. That was when I discovered my musicality. And that echo is an element that is still present today in my singing.” In Três Pontas, Milton forged a close relationship — one that has remained throughout his career — with the pianist Wagner Tiso, who lived on the same street. The duo glued their ears to the radio, hearing sambas, the beginnings of bossa nova, Latin American boleros, early rock’n roll, and French and Italian popular songs. The guitarist and singer shaped his vocals by listening to the divas of the 1950s, from Doris Day to Yma Sumac, then to Ray Charles at the point where his voice was beginning to mature.

TRACKLIST

1. Milton Nascimento - Cancao Do Sal
2. Milton Nascimento - Catavento
3. Milton Nascimento - Cenca
4. Milton Nascimento - Chico Rei
5. Milton Nascimento - Gira Giro
6. Milton Nascimento - Homem Feito
7. Milton Nascimento - Irmão de Fé
8. Milton Nascimento - Maria, Minha Fé
9. Milton Nascimento - Morro Velho
10. Milton Nascimento - Outubro
11. Milton Nascimento - Travessia
12. Milton Nascimento - Trés Pontas
13. Milton Nascimento - Homem Feito
14. Milton Nascimento - Ponte de Areia