A Tábua de Esmeralda is the eleventh studio album by Brazilian singer Jorge Ben, released on LP in 1974. The album is notable for being the last project in which Jorge Ben made intensive use of the acoustic guitar. The instrument was later abandoned in 1976 due to technical reasons that, in Ben’s own words, made it difficult to reproduce the same sound quality: "The guitar pickup we used no longer exists. Today, the sound comes out clean, without that breathing. It’s hard to record like that. I’ll try to do it, but I know it’s impossible to achieve the same sound as Tábua de Esmeralda.” The album is considered the most important work of Jorge Ben’s career, marking the beginning of his so-called “musical alchemy” phase, and is widely regarded as one of the greatest albums in Brazilian popular music. It was ranked the sixth greatest Brazilian album of all time by Rolling Stone Brasil. Critic Philip Jandovský of All Music particularly praised the album’s melodies, noting how they manage to sound natural while never being predictable or trivial. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.