Gilberto Gil: Gilberto Gil & Milton Nascimento : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

This evocative collaboration doesn't depend on the grassy punch of African and rock rhythms that North Americans often cherish in Brazilian music, nor does it indulge Brazil's well-known appetite for fusion. Instead, on their first album together, Gilberto Gil and Milton Nascimento explore late-Sixties bossa-nova symphonicism from a contemporary point of view. Songs such as their version of Jorge Ben's "Xica da Silva" don't lack grooves or arresting shape, but they're more concerned with instrumental grace and fluidity, thanks to string and horn arrangements by Gil Jardim. The singing seems effortless, whether it's Nascimento soaring off in "Yo Vengo a Ofrecer mi Coraz¢n" or Gil intently driving George Harrison's "Something" down a velvety reggae road. Together, on updated bossas like "Dora" or the unreal "Maria," they're a dynamic pair, singing pop chamber music made at midnight on a beach.

JAMES HUNTER
(RS 879 - October 11, 2001)