This is a striking example of the essential Milton Nascimento that has made him a beloved figure in Brazil - a lush, eloquent, unified concept album that cries for universal happiness and personal fulfillment, lashes out briefly at hypocrisy, and haunts the memory with its often stirring tunes. The record opens boldly with a tone poem accurately entitled "Evocation of the Mountains," and a gorgeous lengthy opening vocalese with a plush string backdrop, and it ends simply with the unadorned voice of Nascimento urging us not to analyze things if we want to be happy.
Although several of Nascimento's most familiar songs are contained in this debut American release, Milton (Minas) (referring to his home state of Minas Gerais) is a remarkably cohesive piece of work that stands as one of his finest. It includes famous tunes "Carvo e Canela" and "Nada Sera como Antes."
"Although Nascimento speaks little English," Ralph Gleason writes in the liner notes to this release, "he sings it with assurance and with articulation." In truth, the heavy production hand of Creed Taylor is felt at every point on this project, and the decision to have Nascimento sing in English on this US debut was just one more sign of how this artist was being groomed for crossover success on the pop charts. Taylor had been a behind-the-scenes player in the bossa nova fad, and no doubt saw Nascimento as Brazil's next great musical export.
Francisco de Asís Palacios Ortega (Paco to his friends), better known as the "Pali", born May 22, 1928 in the central neighborhood of La Casa de la Moneda de Sevilla and dies in the same city in 1988 Andalusian at age 60. The nickname seems to be that it is because in his youth was thin as a "stick" nothing to do with the image that is identified in the photographs of his albums since "The Pali" eventually gained weight and had to overcome their myopia with glasses whose lenses were increasing the so-called "bottle-ass." Your fat and glasses gave him that peculiar aspect which remind people of Seville, and who disappeared in 1988 and was buried as said on one of their Sevillanas "With my flag of Spain."