This site still exists, and therein lies an error--there was no A&M release prior to Courage.Here's a link to a Nascimento Discography containing an interesting A&M debut produced by Tamba 4 pianist Luiz Eca.
Milton Nascimento Discography - Slipcue.Com Brazilian Music Guide
But, he did have an album prior to Courage that was released only in Brazil in 1967--Milton Nascimento, his debut album, which was subsequently sold under the title Travessia in 1978 with variations in the album cover art when it started being released around the world.
Musically, Courage is a much-needed re-recording of many of the tracks from the debut. I'm not sure if it was a poor mastering, or a mastering made from a needle drop, but the version of the debut album I just listened to on Qobuz has poor sound quality. The pitch wavers, mainly, and it just sounds a bit off. This would have been as provided to Qobuz by whichever label reissued it.
Luiz Eça did indeed have a hand in the record (mainly orchestrations), and Tamba Trio even makes an unmistakable appearance on "Gira Girou."
Of the two albums, I prefer Courage. Nascimento's voice is mixed a bit distant compared to the debut, but the overall sound is cleaner (or at least, as clean as Van Gelder's muddy engineering could allow) and the entire production is more polished and listenable. Not to knock Luiz Eça's orchestrations on the debut, but there were a couple of uncomfortable moments; he was normally an inventive orchestrator (he was classically trained in Austria), though, so we'll just chalk that up to an experiment or two gone awry.
Again, a lot of the tracks from the debut were re-recorded here, more than half. So while his debut might have been important in some ways, this is really the better of the two.