Milton + esperanza Earns Best Of 2024 Recognition Following GRAMMY Nomination

Full-Length Album Collaboration Between Brazilian Musical Icon Milton Nascimento and Decorated Musician/Composer esperanza spalding 

Watch a New Behind-The-Scenes Short Film on the Album: https://found.ee/Milton-esperanzaBehindTheScenes

“An Intergenerational Triumph” - The Guardian, #2 on 2024's Top 10 Global Albums

Downbeat’s Best Albums of 2024

The Wire’s Releases of the Year 2024

AllMusic’s Year in Review

 Jazzwise - #3, Albums Of The Year

December 12, 2024 – Milton + esperanza (Concord Records), the widely celebrated collaboration between Brazilian music legend Milton Nascimento and esperanza spalding, has been featured on a number of Best of 2024 lists following a GRAMMY nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album.  Today they’ve also shared a new behind-the-scenes video of the album making process, watch here: https://found.ee/Milton-esperanzaBehindTheScenes

Milton + esperanza is a breathtaking fusion of generations and cultures.  Fifteen years in the making, it features reimaginings of Nascimento’s classics including “Cais” and “Outubro,” new original compositions by both Nascimento and spalding, and interpretations of The Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” and Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song.” It was recorded in Brazil in 2023 and produced and arranged by spalding.

The album has been met with raves including a profile of the duo in the New York Times, an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition, a performance together on NPR’s Tiny Desk, and additional interviews in Rolling Stone, SPIN, and much more.  

“A quixotic affair” - The Guardian

“These two voices just sound heavenly together” - NPR

“An astonishing portrait of a singular friendship" - The Fader

"An episodic, strikingly impressionistic album" - Rolling Stone

“This might just be the biggest collaborative project of the year” - WXPN 

“A dream-like realm of folkloric myth, plugged into nature’s heartbeat” - Uncut

“The affection between Nascimento and Spalding is palpable” - New York Times

“A fusion of old and new that charts a path forward for jazz and pop’s future” - The Nation

Album guests include Paul Simon, Dianne Reeves, Lianne La Havas, Maria Gadú, Tim Bernardes, Carolina Shorter, Elena Pinderhughes, Shabaka Hutchings and Guinga. The album features spalding’s core band of Matthew Stevens (guitar), Justin Tyson and Eric Doob (drums), Leo Genovese (piano), Corey D. King (vocals, synths), and several Brazilian musicians, including Orquestra Ouro Preto, percussionists Kainã Do Jêje and Ronaldinho Silva and Lula Galvão. 

Milton + esperanza sparkles with duets between these two voices, exquisite musicianship and what spalding identifies as a central theme of the album: the importance of younger generations creating with, learning from, and building new worlds with elders.  A guiding spirit for the project was Wayne Shorter, whose collaboration with Nascimento, Native Dancer, was released nearly 50 years ago.  “This was all about Wayne,” spalding stated in an interview with WRTI. “I think at the end of the day, he is that guiding light for both of us to dare and be expansive, and also go for broke.” 

The genesis for this album goes back to the very first time spalding heard a Nascimento recording, at a dinner party when a friend put on Native Dancer.  “I get chills even thinking about it,” she says.  “Ninety percent of things I write, I’m thinking of him.  He’s a very present part of my creative imagination.” They would finally meet (thanks in part to an introduction made by Herbie Hancock) and began to collaborate, record and perform live together.  In 2022, Nascimento, now 81, embarked on a farewell tour, and invited spalding to perform on a couple of shows.  At dinner on the eve of her participation in Nascimento’s Boston performance, his son asked her to produce Nascimento’s next album.  

Nascimento - one of the most beloved Brazilian musicians of all time - is a five-time GRAMMY winner, including Best World Music Album for his album Nascimento in 1998. The Brazilian pop vocalist Elis Regina once declared that “if God had a voice, it would be Milton’s.” spalding is a five-time GRAMMY winner and 12-time nominee. She was nominated last year for Best Jazz Vocal Album, and Best Jazz Performance, for a live album by spalding and Fred Hersch - Alive at the Village Vanguard.  Her previous solo album, 2022’s Songwrights Apothecary Lab, won the GRAMMY for Best Jazz Vocal Album. 

Spalding will also tour throughout 2025, including a 12-night residency at the Blue Note in New York City in February and March, and at Big Ears Festival.  Nascimento and spalding haven't confirmed whether or not they will tour to support the record; these performances feature esperanza with her band. Tickets are on sale now, see below for the full itinerary.