(b Rio de Janeiro, 26 Oct 1942). Brazilian composer, singer and instrumentalist. As a child he was taken by his adoptive parents to Três Pontas in Minas Gerais, where his mother taught him the piano. He also learned the accordion, guitar and bass. At 15 he formed his own vocal group, Luar de Prata, which included Wagner Tiso, a keyboard player and arranger who worked with Nascimento throughout his career. In 1963 he moved to Belo Horizonte where he mostly played jazz and also met his future partners, the musicians Fernando Brant and the brothers Márcio and Lô Borges, with whom he co-authored many pieces. He began to compose on a regular basis in 1963 and two years later was recognized as best performer at the first Festival of Brazilian Popular Music. In 1966 the pop singer Elis Regina recorded his song Canção do Sal, and in 1967 his prize-winning Travessia, with lyrics by Brant, was included on his first album Milton Nascimento, later reissued as Travessia. In the next year he recorded the LP Courage in the USA for A&M Records with the participation of Herbie Hancock and Airto Moreira, and also performed in USA and Mexico with João Gilberto and Art Blakey.
Upon his return to Brazil in 1969 he recorded two albums, Milton Nascimento and Milton, in which he began a long cultivation of Minas Gerais themes. The second of these albums included his great hits Para Lennon e McCartney, Canto Latino and Clube da Esquina. In 1971 he worked on the album Clube da Esquina (1972), whose most significant songs included San Vicente, somewhat reminiscent of Chilean tonada style, Saidas e Bandeiras and the lively and sophisticated Nada Será Como Antes. His next album, Milagre dos Peixes, represented a tour de force in vocal effects, particularly effective in their content as almost all the lyrics were banned by the military government censors.
In 1975 Nascimento participated in Wayne Shorter’s album Native Dancer, and in 1976 released his own Minas and Gerais, in which he explored Brazilian and other Latin American folk sources and styles. His own aesthetic orientation in the 1980s was based on a political agenda poetically expressed, as in Sentinela (1980) and especially Missa dos Quilombos (1982), a statement against poverty and oppression which radically mixes Afro-Brazilian musical instruments and rhythms with Catholic hymns. In 1989 he turned his attention to the plight of the native communities of the Amazon, resulting in the album Txai (1990), which contains excerpts of traditional Indian music. In 1994 he made his début at Carnegie Hall, followed by appearances in Canada and Europe. The attraction of his music is undoubtedly due to its sophisticated novelty, Nascimento’s extraordinary vocal ability, and the extremely refined and socially conscious poetry.
M.A. Marcondes, ed.: Enciclopédia da música brasileira: Erudita, folclórica, popular (São Paulo, 1977, 2/1998)
A. Romano de Sant’Anna: Música popular e moderna poesia brasileira (Petrópolis, 1978)
P. Scarnecchia: Musica Popolare Brasiliana (Milan, 1983)
C.A. Perrone: Masters of Contemporary Brazilian Song (Austin, TX, 1989)
M. Borges: Os sonhos nos envelhecem: histórias do Clube da Esquina (São Paulo, 1996)
C. McGowan and R. Pessanha: The Brazilian Sound (Philadelphia, 1998)
GERARD BÉHAGUE