1972 · Album
Clube da Esquina
Recorded November 1971 at Piratininga Beach in Niterói and Odeon Studios in Rio de Janeiro · EMI-Odeon Records · Format: Double album
Where a Collective Found Its Voice
Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges recorded this in late 1971 with musicians who would reshape Brazilian music.
In November 1971, Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges walked into studios in Rio de Janeiro with something already alive between them — not a finished idea, but a collective vision. They'd been part of the Clube da Esquina movement, a group of young musicians in Minas Gerais who'd begun asking what Brazilian music could sound like if you didn't follow the rules everyone expected. The sessions took place at Piratininga Beach in Niterói and at Odeon Studios, and the musicians in the room — Beto Guedes on bass guitar, Toninho Horta on electric guitar, Wagner Tiso on organ, Roberto Silva on drums, plus Rubinho and Luiz Alves — weren't hired hands. They were co-conspirators. This was Nascimento's fifth studio album and Borges' first, but the hierarchy dissolved the moment the tape rolled. What emerged was something that sounded like nothing else in 1972: jazz harmonies meeting samba rhythms, acoustic and electric guitars weaving around each other, and Nascimento's voice rising above it all with that particular grace that made even complex arrangements feel intimate. AllMusic gave it five stars, and that wasn't hyperbole. For anyone new to Nascimento, this is the logical starting point — it shows you everything his voice could do, everything the Clube musicians were capable of together, and exactly why this moment mattered. After this album, Borges went on to his own solo work, but the sound they made together here became a reference point for Brazilian music that followed.
Who's playing
Beto Guedesbass guitar
Milton Nascimentopiano
Lô Borgesacoustic guitar
Toninho Hortaelectric guitar
Tavito12 string guitar
Nelson Angeloelectric guitar
Wagner Tisoorgan
Roberto Silvadrums
Rubinhocongas
Luiz Alvescaxixi
Where next?
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
