Brazil’s Milton Nascimento achieved a timeless genre-blending classic with 1994’s Angelus, deftly mixing a bevy of jazz greats, lithe pop music and these wondrous, title-worthy angelic textures from another land.
A heightened realism traveled throughout the recording. Its lyrics, translated to English, were brilliant, nearly blinding lights – beacons of imagery and distraction along the lines of the genius writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Yet, for the uninitiated, Angelus is grounded in the familiar: Herbie Hancock, Jack DeJohnette, Pat Metheny and Wayne Shorter matched those flights of meaning with spiraling rhythm intrusions, crisp guitar arpeggios, and the just-right sax insinuation. Additional vocalists included Peter Gabriel, who on “Qualquer Coisa A Haver Com O Paraiso” confirmed the notion that his voice may be the most ineffably melancholic, quietly resolute instrument in pop music.
I remain less interested in the faster cuts like “De Um Modo Geral,” which had a somewhat tired, repetitive beat. And the tune with James Taylor had an as-you-might-expect sound to it: Pleasant singer-songwriter folk.
There followed, though, the oddest pleasure: Nascimento’s at-first dreaded reading of the Beatles’ “Hello Goodbye,” a tune that barely requires even its original version. On Angelus, however, it’s explored in an absolutely atmospheric range — turning this simple, almost unabashedly silly tune into something approaching beauty.
Such is the genius of Milton Nascimento, who has the ability to produce corner-of-the-eye revelations at the most unexpected of times. That makes Angelus a nice entry point into his music, one that bridges the Brazilian genre with the wider Western aesthetic — both jazz and mainstream popular music.
It’s also a great listen, easy but rarely simplistic.
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