Pianist and bandleader Eddie Palmieri stretches traditional forms and surprises the listener throughout this 1974 album. His own playing is forceful and even avant-garde at times, while the big band he assembles, which is stacked with horns, often lays back to make room for the stinging lead lines of violinist Alfredo de la Fe. Lead vocalist Lalo Rodríguez, only 16 at the time, combines romanticism and slickness with a theater kid’s passion. The album’s centerpiece is a nearly 15-minute suite, “Un Dia Bonito,” that starts with a lengthy piano solo of almost Cecil Taylor-esque intensity, and when the band comes in the production is just as challenging, deplying echo, reverb, phasing and stereo panning effects to create an immersive and fascinating sound-world.