Thinking Musically

Milton + esperanza – a new album by Brazilian legend Milton Nascimento and decorated musician/composer esperanza spalding – will be released August 9 on Concord Records. Recorded in Brazil over the course of 2023, Milton + esperanza is a dream-come-true collaboration and musical representation of a friendship that was first kindled nearly 15 years ago. The album features 16 tracks that celebrate and reimagine five of Nascimento’s beloved classics, newly written originals by spalding, and fascinating interpretations of The Beatles’ “A Day In The Life” and Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song” among other works that lovingly explore the music of Brazil and far beyond. Special guest appearances include Paul Simon, Dianne Reeves, Lianne La Havas, Maria Gadú, Tim Bernardes, Carolina Shorter, Shabaka Hutchings and more. Milton + esperanza sparkles with duets between these two iconic 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.

The music of Steve Reich has been heard in various venues, including electronic music dance clubs, but the full symphony orchestra treatment has been rare. That is changing, however, with the tenure of Kristjan Järvi as chief conductor of the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the result in that musically conservative, German city is this major-label double album of Reich's music, in many respects a first. Järvi's enthusiasm for the project is palpable here, most obviously in the live performance of the early Reich standard Clapping Music, which he and the composer perform together to the approval of the crowd.

Frankie Miller’s eighth solo album “Standing On The Edge” was his first away from the Chrysalis label and was also at that point his rockiest and most polished effort. The bar room backing or stripped back blues and soul of the earlier albums being replaced with a polished, sleek and far more rocky production. Musically and arrangement wise this was more akin to Bad Company, Foreigner or even Whitesnake than the old blues and soul feel of its predecessors…

What a difference three years and a new vocalist make. German-Swiss band the Ocean has had nearly 40 members since songwriter/guitarist Robin Staps founded the Ocean Collective a decade ago. The addition of vocalist Loïc Rossetti has, according to Staps, influenced the very nature of how the Ocean creates music. Heliocentric is the first of two companion albums to be issued in 2010.
Musically, Heliocentric stands apart from everything the Ocean has ever recorded. The band’s production and compositional approaches are much more spacious than on previous outings. For starters, Rossetti spends most of his time actually singing rather than growling. There are more textures here, but they are employed economically…

What a difference three years and a new vocalist make. German-Swiss band the Ocean has had nearly 40 members since songwriter/guitarist Robin Staps founded the Ocean Collective a decade ago. The addition of vocalist Loïc Rossetti has, according to Staps, influenced the very nature of how the Ocean creates music. Heliocentric is the first of two companion albums to be issued in 2010.
Musically, Heliocentric stands apart from everything the Ocean has ever recorded. The band’s production and compositional approaches are much more spacious than on previous outings. For starters, Rossetti spends most of his time actually singing rather than growling. There are more textures here, but they are employed economically…