The first time the 39-year-old American bassist, singer, composer and five-time Grammy winner Esperanza Spalding heard the music of Milton Nascimento it changed her life. The singer-songwriter, now 81, is venerated in his native Brazil for his timeless melodies, evocative lyrics and compositions that readily embrace a wide world of influences, from bossa nova to baroque and The Beatles; he has also shown an admirable commitment to using music to fight political, social and racial injustice.
Nascimento’s spirit and vitality have captivated numerous international admirers, including Paul Simon, Björk and the late, great jazz saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter, whose landmark 1975 album with Nascimento, Native Dancer, was Spalding’s gateway drug. “Ninety per cent of things I write, I’m thinking of him,” the preternaturally gifted Spalding has said of her hero. “I’m thinking of his voice. I’m imagining singing it with him. He’s a very present part of my creative imagination.”
Although she has already realised a heartfelt ambition to record with Nascimento, when he sang on a track on her 2010 album Chamber Music Society, for Spalding this new release represents a whole other dimension of dream-come-true.
For one thing, it was thought that Nascimento had effectively retired from making music; two years ago he staged a global farewell tour. Secondly, Spalding not only managed to persuade Nascimento to record five of his beloved classics but also wrote new songs with him firmly in mind, then invited an impressive roll-call of guests to join them, including Simon, Dianne Reeves, Lianne La Havas, Shabaka and the Brazilian string ensemble Orquestra Ouro Preto.
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The result is something of a mini-masterpiece. Uppermost is the near-magical melding of the two lead voices: Spalding’s bright, airy vocals and Nascimento’s plaintive tenor and ethereal falsetto seem as if they were made for each other. Hearing Nascimento revisit songs such as Cais and Outubro is suitably poignant; as on the late recordings of Johnny Cash, his voice is at once fragile and steadfast. The shape-shifting Spalding has always sung in other languages, and she brings an effortless grace to these Portuguese lyrics.
Elsewhere, there is a properly psychedelic version of The Beatles’ A Day in the Life and musical interludes full of chat and laughter that give the impression you are eavesdropping on a joyful private party. Mostly, there is a liquid sense of space, of light and lightness, of, as Spalding has explained, “a smooth multicoloured sailing ship travelling through cosmic waters”. The journey ends with an expansive version of a song by Shorter, the album’s presiding spirit (and another of Spalding’s primary role models), When You Dream. It could be the motto of the album itself.
