Milton Nascimento / Esperanza Spalding: Milton + esperanza

Sometimes the semiology around an album can tell you more about it than any amount of words attempting to describe the music itself. And the semiology around Milton + esperanza is eloquent. It begins with the overlap with another summer 2024 release, Wayne Shorter's magical double-album Celebration Volume 1 (Blue Note), a previously unreleased recording of Shorter's Quartet in concert in 2014, with liner notes written by Shorter's wife Carolina.

Now consider the overlap. Wayne Shorter recorded with Milton Nascimento on the 1975 album Native Dancer (CBS), and the relationship continued until Shorter passed in 2023. Towards the end of his life, Shorter was a mentor and champion of Esperanza Spalding. Shorter's "When You Dream" (from his 1985 CBS album Atlantis) closes Milton + esperanza. Carolina Shorter is a guest vocalist on the track, singing alongside Nascimento and Spalding. She is heard on another track, too, "Wings For The Thought Bird," chanting a Nichiren Buddhist mantra. Nascimento and Spalding were introduced to each other by the Shorters' friend Herbie Hancock, and they first collaborated on Spalding's Chamber Music Society (Heads Up, 2010).

Enough semiology. The smoke signals should be in clear sight. They promise beauty and depth, and both are delivered in generous quantities. Check the YouTube below.

The music on Shorter's Celebration Volume 1 is superficially different from that on Milton + esperanza. But there are profound similarities. (Shorter's album is scheduled for release on August 23, 2024, a month ahead at the time of writing this review.) Listening to Celebration Volume 1, one feels like one is cruising through space on Starship Shorter, watching an unfolding panorama of quasars, suns, star systems and new life forms pass by. Another metaphor might be one of those deep-sea explorations where strange but beautiful sea creatures drift in and out of the submersible's spotlight. It is a trip alright.

So is Milton + esperanza, but the voyage is closer to home. A recurring theme in the song lyrics seems—most of the lyrics are in Portuguese and no English translations are provided, so it is hard to be certain—to concern the health of planet Earth and how it can be secured. The music is in the same elevated ballpark as the Shorter album, although Spalding and Nascimento have more instrumental resources at hand than did the Quartet, including a full-sized string orchestra and plenty of guest artists. The latter include Shabaka Hutchings on tenor saxophone and flute on three tracks, the great Guinga on guitar and vocals on two tracks, and Lianne La Havas, Paul Simon and Dianne Reeves helping out on vocals on one track each.

The sixteen tracks include new arrangements of five Nascimento classics, newly written originals by Spalding and an out-of-its-tree reading of The Beatles' "A Day In The Life" (though, it should be said, no further out than the Fab Four managed in 1967 with two four-track tape machines and the zeitgeist). The core band is Spalding's touring group: Matthew Stevens (guitar), Justin Tyson and Eric Doob (drums), Leo Genovese (piano) and Corey D. King (vocals, synth). Most of the album was recorded in Rio de Janeiro in 2023, with Spalding producing, and arranging all but the string orchestra.

An utterly enchanting album which at times possesses something approaching a sacred vibe.