The eponymous debut by the wizard of Alagoas Hermeto Pascoal came more than ten years into his career and on the heels of several successful jazz/fusion group releases. Hermeto is his first album as a leader and his first to be recorded in the United States. This is a big band/with strings jazz record featuring largely new players to the Pascoal universe, though his longtime drummer Airto Moria and his friend the singer Flora Purim feature and co-produce.

Immediately the album highlights Pascoals skills as writer, arranger and band leader. At first the songs are arranged in a beautiful though fairly tame way that reflects other legendary MPB and jazz strings albums and draws immediate comparison of him to any of the greats. There are some more sparse moments here as well, centering his keyboard and flute playing with additional emphasis on Airto and Flora. Each song ends a little freer and more interesting than it began and each song is a little more surprising and ambitious than the last. 

The listener is as ready as they’ll ever be by the time the record moves from ultramodern and progressive to outright experimental on the B side. Still the album never loses its approachable and folksy emotional immediacy. Every track strives for some kind of beauty in its songwriting. Even when there’s dissonance, unusual instrumentation across flutes and glass bottles and percussion, vocal abstractions and droning strings. The album has tension but it’s never confrontational- more theatrical. Like a folk dance, classical suite or a lyrical ballad. That tension and experimentation is resolved throughout the third quarter of the record and by the end you’re returned to a cinematic, very third stream neoclassical sound. The last two tracks are a wonderful closing sequence that gently reminds the listener how exceptional Hermetos orchestrations really are.

This is an unmissable and classic jazz record with so much for any kind of instrumental music fan to enjoy. Hermeto has solo, trio, quartet and big band moments. There’s stuff that’s intensely arranged and stuff that’s clearly spontaneous. It’s danceable, it’s incredible headphone candy, it’s a historic debut that everyone should hear.