Milton Nascimento & Naná Vasconcelos performing together on David Sanborn's show, SUNDAY NIGHT was a great musical moment for me.
David Sanborn had a brilliant show. There was a house band.
Omar Hakim (drummer),
Don Alias (percussionist),
Marcus Miller (bassist),
Hiram Bullock (guitars), a keyboardist whose name doesn't rush to the surface of my mind, and of course the great imaginative saxaphonist,
David Sanborn. David would invite an eclectic cross section of musical styles, and musicians who often would never meet on a session to play music for an hour. Milton Nascimento is a prolific composer, and singer from Brazil. His songs are haunting, and memorable. Naná Vasconcelos is an extraordinary percussionist from Brazil who approaches music from some high spiritual place that merges musical styles, thoughts, consciousness, nature, beauty and love into something ethereal. My approach was similar to his, and I felt I had met a kindred spirit when I chanced upon him on an album in the 1980's.
I have had the priviledge of playing a lot of music of different genres with musicians with incredible gifts, and insights into the cosmos of music-making. Following the musical dreams given to me at birth is a responsibility. The musician hears voices, sounds, and some of us see the colors of sound, and making music is the copulation between celestial and terrestrial populations of beings immersed in the sounds of music. Being a musican is a
priest-craft above every other trapping of the trade. It is the call of spirits to the hearts of musicans who hear sounds of the universe, and translates them into funk, jazz, Arabic music, and other musics the world over. -Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of the Drum
