NATIVE DANCER

This album does not have the fire found in "Romantic Warrior" or "Spectrum". As I have told in reviews from those two albums, the sub genre jazz-rock/fusion many of the times attracts me because of being "flashy", which is not what we can find here. So what is "Native Dancer" about in order to call anyone´s attention? The answer is OPPORTUNITY. I consider this album to be a kind of opportunity for old proggers to be in touch with what in a very pleasant musical way happens in the realm of "Pindorama" (native name for Brazil prior to its European discovery). In "Native Dancer, we have the presence of renewed brazillian musicians as Milton Nascimento, Wagner Tiso, Roberto Silva and Airto Moreira. Among these guys, for many art and music appreciators Milton is considered as the greatest artist that have ever appeared in Brazil, far ahead of Bossa Nova and "Garota de Ipanema" related masters (and sure many of them really excels as musicians). And what makes this opinion to be so strongly consolidated is the deep beauty found in his voice and also his capacity of passing deep and strong emotions with his singing.

This album is the result of a strong friendship that appeared involving Wayne, Milton and Herbie Hancock, another iconic jazz man. As far as I can guess, a thoughtful artist like Wayne Shorter saw an opportunity to mix jazz criteria with brazillian folk music in order to produce something new. And, as a formidable tool to have success in this task, he used the angelic voice of Milton Nascimento throughout "Native Dancer". Once Elis Regina, a famous singer in Brazil and very important in promoting the beginning of Milton´s career, said that if God wanted to speak to Mankind he would choose exactly the voice of Milton Nascimento. And this VOICE is the first and overwhelming achievement Wayne Shorter presented here, and without any trace of over exposition. The second one is the wearing up of brazillian folk music with the tissues and colors of jazz in a very balanced musical journey.

From the nine anthems presented here, five are traditional songs related to and even composed by Milton Nascimento (three other are from Mr Shorter and one from Mr Hancock). Those five ones belong to a strong (IMHO the best) musical movement in Brazil named "Clube Da Esquina". Some artists here in progarchives received a lot of influences from it, ones like 14 Bis, Som Imaginário, O Terço; and my favorite brazillian prog artist here, Marco Antonio Araújo. When a musician like Wayne Shorter gets aware of musical movement and develops a friendship with its greatest name the result is a gift to music apreciators in a form of brazillian folk jazz in a soft and mild heartened album named "Native Dancer"

I would recommend this album for anyone; but strongly for those veterans that expects discoveries in new realms of music even if not in the core of progressive rock music. For them I would also sugest a Milton´s album named "Milton" (the one from 1976, because there is another one with this name from 1970). This album and "Journey To Dawn" from 1979 were released with jazz touches (and also with the presence of Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock in "Milton") with the objective of being known and accepted in north American jazz music market.

But I CANNOT not stop here. There is one more strong recommendation, maybe the strongest I could do. From the album "Sentinela" (1980), there is a Heitor Villa Lobos song named "Cantiga Caicó". Everyone should listen to this at least once in a lifetime and probably would guess Hermann Hesse would choose Milton as master of ceremony in his Magic Theater. It is a masterpiece of art, a way of understanding why God would speak to us with his voice; and mainly a strong reason to consider that there MAY be a God above.

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