3/23/2021 0 Comments Best Pat Metheny Album
Photograph: Jimmy Katz Searching out a bigger soundscape Pat Metheny.The sound of the Grammy-showered Pat Metheny Group of the 1980s and 90s is engagingly audible sometimes, but the engine of this set is the superb jazz playing of Methenys current live band, featuring Birdman-score drummer Antonio Sanchez, double bassist Linda May Han Oh, and UK pianist Gwilym Simcock.Pat Metheny: From This Place album art work Recording unrehearsed (the leaders idea) they rip through the music with freewheeling relish, with Meshell Ndegeocellos haunting voice and Grgoire Marets harmonica adding one telling guest contribution each.
America Undefined (a James Baldwin reference) packs racing solos, rocking vamps, dreamy reflections and train-bell clangs, passing as if on fierce winds, into its 13-plus minutes. Metheny is Wes Montgomery -like on the catchy Wide and Far, plugs his horn-mimicking synth guitar into the Latin-gliding Same River, and zigzags through the jazzy Pathmaker, while the whole band erupts joyously on standout track Everything Explained, the most symmetrically song-shaped piece. Metheny subsequently dubbed in classical orchestral parts by himself and other classy arrangers. These are mostly discreet, at times beguiling or dramatic, and occasionally distractingly smoochy, as on the closing Love May Take Awhile. They will be superfluous for some, but they do provide this fine album with the bigger soundscape, richer textures and probably wider appeal Metheny was after, cooling the improv heat hardly at all. Also out this month Life Goes On (ECM) is the third of an unhurried sequence of disorientatingly moving trio recordings by jazz composing legend Carla Bley, with bassist Steve Swallow and saxophonist Andy Sheppard. It contains slow blues, wry tangos and very conversational improv. And young UK saxophonist, poet and activist Alabaster DePlume reveals a tremblingly vocal sax vibrato and a fondness for folksily jigging grooves that seems to bridge Sidney Bechet and Jan Garbarek on To Cy Lee: Instrumentals Vol 1 (Lost Map Records). Topics Jazz Jazz album of the month Pat Metheny album reviews Reuse this content comments ( 0 ) Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion. Best Pat Metheny Album Archive Facebook TwitterFilm Books Music Art design TV radio Stage Classical Games News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle About us Contact us Complaints corrections SecureDrop Work for us Privacy policy Cookie policy Terms conditions Help All topics All writers Digital newspaper archive Facebook Twitter Newsletters Advertise with us Guardian Labs Search jobs Back to top 2020 Guardian News Media Limited or its affiliated companies.
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