Clube De Esquina

21 tracks.

This Tropicália give to us some advantages, like this :
1. Celebrating a friendship
This is both the high point and the beginning of the end of a long friendship (as beautifully told in the book Sonhos nao Envelhecem, available only in portuguese :-( )

The Clube da Esquina was a loosely bound group of friends from Belo Horizonte, a city located in the middle of the Brazilian territory, in the Minas Gerais state, far away from the sea. They got together in the 70s to play music, drink beer and talk about the Beatles, a band they loved.

Milton was the obvious star in the group but all of them were immensely talented and had a lot to contribute as is clear in their solo work (Lo Borges albums are masterpieces if you are able to overlook his vocal flaws and Beto Guedes is pretty good too).

Notice that by then Milton was not the superstar he became after. This album is signed by both him and Lo Borges. This is still a group effort.

The album has a very free style. It sounds lyrical, obviously Beatles influenced, smooth, gentle,...

2. Classic Rock Without the FM.
"Clube da Esquina", or "The Corner Gang", may look and sound like another Brazilian/Latin record on the surface, but that's where it all ends. The racially mixed cover portrait of children sitting together should be a slight indication.

Tropicalia was a late 60's movement in Brazil where the limitations of then-traditional/popular music (i.e. brazileiras, bossa nova, batucada, choros, etc.) were charged around by the use of British/American pop-rock influences. Talents like Os Mutantes, Lo Borges, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Milton Nascimento and others took the liberties of the above and created a music that, though poking fun & rebellion at already set national musical values, was actually quite complimentary & evolutionary. Though a lot of the older generation did not welcome it with open arms (this was 1966-1969), Tropicalia not only matured Brazilian music & gave it an undeniable social awareness (though some sentiments did not settle well...

Need more appointment... ?
Third of Milton's Masterpieces
This is another stunning jewel by Milton (check Minas and Geraes being, to me, the other two). It precedes those two other albums by about a couple of years, yet it does not stay behind in terms of its capacity to move and surprise with its beauty. Unlike Minas and Geraes, this album is more of a collaborative effort, counting on almost every great musician in Brazil to give it its identity (see the excellent review by David Mijares, right before mine, for a thorough and loving chronicle of what this album represented in Brazilian popular music and the people who brought it to be such a tremendous work).
Because it is the work of a community of talented artists, rather than a personal vision alone, it does not have the integrity of the other works mentioned but this is, by far, not a loss. In the contrary, it offers, instead, an edge and diversity that keeps stunned from beginning to end. You have to remember that it was recorded in 1972, to appreciate the revolutionary quality...
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