Milton Nascimento

Clube da Esquina

Milton Silva Campos do Nascimento, nicknamed Bituca, was born on October 26, 1942 in Rio de Janeiro and raised in Três Pontas, Minas Gerais. He sings and plays guitar and piano. After early samba groups and W's Boys with Wagner Tiso, he made his first recording, "Barulho de Trem", in 1962, and released Milton Nascimento (Travessia) in 1967 and Courage in 1969. He led Clube da Esquina, a loose collective named for a street corner in Belo Horizonte, with Lô Borges, Márcio Borges, Fernando Brant, Wagner Tiso, Beto Guedes, Toninho Horta, Flávio Venturini and Ronaldo Bastos.

The double album Clube da Esquina (March 1972, EMI-Odeon, 64:24) was produced by Milton Miranda and Lindolfo Gaya and recorded in November 1971 at a beach house in Piratininga, Niterói, and at the Odeon studios in Rio. It was shared with Lô Borges. Initial reviews in Brazil were mostly negative and the first concert in Rio went badly and was suspended, but it has since ranked 7th on Rolling Stone Brasil's list of 100 Brazilian records (2007), first on the Discoteca Básica list of 500 (2022) and ninth on Paste's 300 greatest albums (2024). Pitchfork's Andy Beta gave 9.5 and called it one of the most ambitious albums in Brazilian music history; AllMusic gave five of five.

Later records include Milagre dos Peixes (1973), Native Dancer with Wayne Shorter (1974), Clube da Esquina 2 (1978), Txai (1990), Angelus (1994) and Nascimento (1997).