Milton Nascimento and Esperanza Spalding: Milton + Esperanza review – a quixotic double act

Brazilian singer Milton Nascimento has long fascinated western musicians, in particular US jazzers such as the late sax titan Wayne Shorter, though UK yacht rockers Duran Duran also bagged him for their 1993 track Breath After Breath. American bassist, singer and jazz sprite Esperanza Spalding first worked with Nascimento in 2010 (they were introduced by Herbie Hancock), though it has taken a decade more for this full-blown collaboration between the 81-year-old and his garlanded 39-year-old acolyte, who describes Nascimento and Shorter as her heroes.

It’s a quixotic affair, built around versions of Nascimento classics such as Outubro and Saudade Dos Aviões Da Panair, on which the pair’s contrasting vocals combine and entrance. Spalding sings high and larkish, Nascimento low and rugged (his days of soaring are done) and invariably with a poetic, nostalgic tinge. Among the standouts is his duet with Paul Simon (with whom he has paired before) on Um Vento Passou. Nothing can save Michael Jackson’s Earth Song from empty pomposity, not even Dianne Reeves singing lead, while their version of the Beatles’ A Day in the Life is upbeat and, under tropical skies, plain odd. Some bright, brief Spalding originals and snatches of instrumental and spoken word whimsy are woven through this warm but fragmentary offering.