Milton Nascimento: Pietà

CML call number: CD JAZZ Nascimento
Ben Ratliff wrote in the New York Times: "There's … a good new Milton Nascimento album … produced by Tom Capone [Brazilian pop producer, d. 2004]. 'Pietà' (Savoy Jazz), which actually came out three years ago in Brazil, is a kind of stylistic retrospective. Some songs recall Mr. Nascimento's spookily beautiful records of the early 1970's, mixing his painfully honest, wavering voice with Catholic Mass solemnity, advanced harmony and Beatlesesque melody hooks; others, with swelling, cinematic orchestral arrangements by Eumir Deodato, evoke the records he made for the American market in the late 1960's. A version of Herbie Hancock's 'Canteloupe Island' with Mr. Hancock on piano, Pat Metheny on guitar and Mr. Nascimento layering wordless vocals acknowledges his importance to jazz musicians. But the song 'Pietà,' full of Capone's fingerprints, is the most impressively original: it's essentially 12-string guitar, orchestra, tape loops and surdo drums, with Mr. Nascimento chanting lyrics that match the drum rhythm. Let's hope Capone had many apprentices" ("Playlist: A Saxophonist's Hard-Won, High-Cost Brilliance," 8/19/06).