Grammy-winning jazz artist esperanza spalding says she gets chills when she thinks about the first time she heard the voice of Milton Nascimento, played over the stereo at a dinner party.
She was a student at Berklee College of Music, and Nascimento, a Brazilian singer-songwriter many decades her senior, became an inspiration to her. The two eventually became friends, performing with each other on one of spalding’s albums, on stage and at Nascimento’s home in Brazil.
It’s Nascimento’s home in Rio de Janeiro where they also recorded much of their new collaborative album, Milton + esperanza, in the room where the 81-year-old Nascimento enjoys watching television. The album is a mix of new songs, covers of other artists and songs from Nascimento’s catalog. It also features guest appearances from artists like Paul Simon, Lianne La Havas and Shabaka Hutchings.
In today's session, you'll hear spalding and Nascimento perform songs from that album in an exclusive mini-concert recorded live in Brazil for World Cafe.
This episode of World Cafe was produced by Will Loftus and produced for the web by Miguel Perez. Our senior producer is Kimberly Junod and our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson.
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