How do you bring the African Diaspora to the Grammys?Esperanza Spalding and Milton Nascimento's contrasting tones make a perfect team on Milton + esperanza, a collection of covers, duets, and original songs that have earned the pair a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album. Today, Brittany and Esperanza get into the years-long intergenerational friendship behind the music, and the Brazilian influences on the album. Support public media and receive ad-free listening & bonus. Join NPR+ today.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
Chapter 1: Who is Esperanza Spalding?
Hello, hello. I'm Brittany Luce, and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident. This is one of those interviews where my parents are going to be like, oh. You talk to her. That's right, Mom and Dad. Today's guest is somebody you know I have been a fan of for a long time.
Back in 2010, I bought the CD of Chamber Music Society. It's been that long. I bought the CD. I went to a Borders. Oh, my gosh. Whoa.
Flashback.
Flashback. Today's guest is jazz singer, multi-instrumentalist, and composer Esperanza Spalding. She's a 2025 Grammy Award nominee for Best Jazz Vocal Album, but she's no stranger to that golden statue. You might remember her as the winner of the 2011 Grammy for Best New Artist, beating out the likes of Florence and the Machine, Mumford & Sons, Drake, and Justin Bieber.
I take this honor to heart so sincerely, and I'll do my damnedest to make a whole lot of great music for all of you.
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Chapter 2: What is the significance of the album 'Milton + esperanza'?
You are actually our third Grammy Best New Artist winner to appear on this show behind EGOT winner John Legend and one of your fellow nominees this year for Best Jazz Vocal Album, Samara Joy. Luscious company. I wonder, though, when it comes to the Best New Artists... Is there a club? A group chat?
A secret society? Anything that we need to know about? I mean, if there is, I'm not in it. As far as I know. As far as...
Since then, Esperanza has become a music luminary with a sound that defies genres. She's performed with legends like Stevie Wonder and Patti LaBelle and was personally selected by Barack Obama to perform at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies. Her latest project combines her distinctive sound with that of Brazilian jazz icon Milton Nascimento on their latest album, Milton and Esperanza.
The album is truly the best of both worlds. A love letter to the style and sound that has made Nascimento a jazz icon over the past half century. And the complex experimental melodies Esperanza has made her signature over the past two decades. How did each of you first learn of the other person?
Apparently, the way he heard about me is Herbie Hancock told him.
That's a good word to get put in for you.
Wild. I was like, what's a universe? What dream have I stumbled into? Yeah, Herbie apparently told him, hey, there's this girl who plays bass and sings and composes and she wants to meet you. And then I heard about him for the first time on Wayne Shorter's Native Dancer.
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Chapter 3: How did Esperanza and Milton Nascimento meet?
It was like this force that was so powerful, wrapped its arms around my bone marrow and was like, you're always going to be a part of this sound and this sound is always going to be a part of you. It just became this luminous letter in my musical DNA, you know. Yeah, that's how I first encountered him.
That initial encounter led to a collaboration on Esperanza's 2010 album, Chamber Music Society. For Esperanza, it was a lesson in humility. I loved the album. I even got my dad into it. And I ended up going with my parents to see you at the Detroit show that you did on that tour back then.
One of the songs on the album called Apple Blossom was my introduction to your collaborative relationship with Milton Nascimento.
And from above, she's always watching. But her body lies near the apple blossoms.
It's a gorgeous song. It's about the life cycles of both nature and love. What about working together on that song made you realize that Milton would become a friend and collaborator for life?
Well, the grace and patience that he extended to me, this young little something something who had this idea, had this song, which I really struggled to finish the lyrics on that. And I couldn't finish them until I think the night before Christmas.
Oh, wow.
So really, he received the lyrics the day we got into the studio. And that is like a really unfair position to put him in on that. And I could tell he was frustrated and unhappy and concerned. Like, you know, he wouldn't have a chance to really like rap his songs. his mind and his heart and his pronunciation practice around those lyrics.
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Chapter 4: What was Esperanza's first impression of Milton's music?
Right.
And what I really appreciated is he let me know, like he didn't hide the fact he was frustrated and still brought loving kindness. Yeah. and generosity and joy and his full self, you know, to that recording session. And that I feel is a very rare combination. That integrity and that care of like, I'm going to let you know how this affected me because it affected me in an unpleasant way.
And I'm not going to take that out on you. I'm here to do the beautiful thing. So let's do it. And that's a really particular way to get to know somebody that they're frustrated with you, you know. Yeah. And it's like, oh, we went through that part of our friendship, you know, already. We got it out the way.
I mean, I have to be honest. I had never actually heard of Milton before your song Together back in 2010. But because you introduced me to him, I learned so much more about Black Brazilian musicians like Milton and Gilberto Gil. Like, talk to me about the Black Brazilian musical influences on this album and key moments where they stand out to you.
I love this question. Yeah. This is hard to speak directly to, but there's fury, there's terror, there's grief inside of all that beauty. And we don't have to wonder what that terror and grief and fury is about. It's about centuries of profound brutality exacted on black peoples in that country, in the country's United States.
And as much as we love the beautiful grooves and the melodies and the energy, there's a force in that music that maybe your brain doesn't know the history of what happened in Brazil. But something in you knows I'm somehow involved in that. Somehow this is also about me. And I don't mean that in like a I want to destroy you. It's about you. But it's asking that we really...
Feel the truth, you know, feel something of the truth of what happened there that is still reverberating through the lives of black people. And it's still reverberating through the lives of non-black people because the, you know, it's a system that everyone becomes involved and complicit in to this day. So all that to say.
As glorious and wondrous as João Gilberto and Carlos Jobim are, period, I also can witness the discrepancy or the disparity between a more European presenting, at least let's say that, representation of Brazilian music compared to Black cultural Afro-Brazilian music.
But I also felt like throughout this album, you and Milton were having like a diasporic conversation.
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Chapter 5: How do Black Brazilian musical influences shape the album?
And when you speak about the diasporic connection, I think about the often, I think, under-addressed connection between Brazil and, let's say, the United States. There are very, very similar social-political contexts
inside of which these diasporic beings are creating the medicine they need, are creating the sacred sanctuaries that they need to just endure, to invigorate themselves, remind themselves, empower themselves, to strategize their liberation in untenable circumstances. and create the kind of joy that helps you envision other possibilities.
And all of those factors, you could say, exist inside of Brazilian music in its history, Black Brazilian music in its history specifically, and the music of African-ancestored people in the United States.
Coming up, wise words passed from a jazz icon to a jazz legend in the making.
He had this phrase, oh my God, it's like one of the best things I've ever heard. Well, I only heard him say it once, but I have repeated it many times, so it's become a phrase of his.
Stick around. You all were creating across generations as well, and not just with each other. I mean, the guest spots on this album also span generationally. Paul Simon, Leon LaHavas, the great Diane Reeves, and so many more people all appear on this album. I wonder what kind of intergenerational conversation is being had on this album?
A natural one. I love you uplifting that. It's like a very broad age range on the album. And it's really because that's how our music communities work. You know, that's, I hope how all of our communities work that, that,
we're in touch with and connected to and familiar with so many different ages of people and whatever the question of the task or the need is at hand, we can kind of scan and reach out in multiple directions, you know, and whoever ends up being assembled to respond to the question or need at hand, we'll kind of represent all the diff, we'll be like a representative swath of the community at large.
Yeah.
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Chapter 6: What message does Esperanza want to convey through her music?
Otherwise, you have to be shoved in even though you can swim.
Oh, I'm taking that to therapy. That's that's a good one.
You know what I'm saying? It is so deep. And he would always say, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. Always encouraging you to go for broke. That is a sentiment or an approach or a philosophy of life that has really been nurtured and developed in me through my knowing of Wayne, my relationship to Wayne. And so there it is.
One last question. What's a song from this album that you feel is a perfect blend of your musical approaches? Yours and Milton's.
I think Otubro. I think that really sounds like, oh yeah, yeah, that's Milton letting Esperanza have her way with his song.
Que eu vou contar Certa moça me falando Alegria De repente ressurgiu
Even the way that we came to the arrangement in the studio together and the play between Milton's voice and my voice and the outro, this like endless outro.
Mi historia esta contada, vo me despedir
To me, it sounds like, mm-hmm, that's, yeah, that's them, you know. I mean, by them, I mean Milton and me.
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