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Hermeto Pascoal | Essential albums and listening guide
Explore Hermeto Pascoal through Slaves Mass. Discover what to listen for and follow related styles to your next record.
Hermeto Pascoal
Meet the artist
A multi-instrumentalist and composer often called a musical magician. His free-ranging ability to turn almost any sound into music expanded the possibilities of Brazilian music. Brazilian rhythms underpin intricate harmonies and unexpected metric shifts.
Keyboards, winds, voices and everyday sounds become equally valid materials, blurring the boundary between life and performance. Apparent exuberance can hide precise construction, with familiar melodies opening into dense ensembles. His collaborative work turns a remarkable personal imagination into a shared musical language, expanding the possibilities between jazz and Brazilian music.
Where to start listening
Enjoy the shape of each sound before trying to identify its source. Listen for the meeting of rhythms, voices and unexpected instrumental colors.
1977Slaves Mass
Hermeto Pascoal
An international release on Warner Bros. with Flora Purim, Airto Moreira and others. Pascoal’s musical imagination extends even to the sounds of pigs.
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2003Mundo Verde Esperança
Hermeto Pascoal
An album with Pascoal’s long-running group, whose mature playing embodies his philosophy of universal music: a free meeting of Brazilian popular traditions, jazz and the avant-garde.
Open this album in the Atlas →
Years follow the Atlas catalogue. Recording dates, original release dates and digital reissue dates may differ.