Milton + esperanza, the collaborative release from Milton Nascimento and esperanza spalding, makes for a lockstep pairing of the duo’s respective sensibilities. Blending Nascimento’s plaintive and lilting melodies with spalding’s intuition for fresh musical settings, the album matches them strength-for-strength over a variety of covers, reworks, and originals. It is lovely, complex, surprising, and sincere – and it follows that Nascimento and spalding are much the same in conversation with one another.
KCRW’s Rocio “Wyldeflower” Contreras had a rare opportunity to sit down with the two legends during their time in LA for a Grammy celebration-turned-wildfire-fundraiser in January. In a conversation which moves freely between English and Portuguese, Nascimento and spalding discussed Milton’s lifelong love of collaboration; spalding’s view of the album as like “going to Saturn”; and the mutual influence of their late friend Wayne Shorter.
esperanza spalding and KCRW DJ Rocio “Wyldeflower” Contreras at 2220 Arts + Archives, January 31, 2025.
More:
esperanza spalding: Guest DJ Set (7/31/2024)
esperanza spalding: Live on MBE (8/26/2012)
Milton Nascimento: A Different Kind of Brazilian Voice (4/27/2017)
RIP Wayne Shorter: A tribute and final conversation with the jazz pioneer (3/3/2023)