This selection of recordings by Pat Metheny for ECM is part of a 10-album series that purports to mark the occasion of the German label’s 15th anniversary. The choice of tracks is fairly representative of the guitarist’s ECM work – which is no great feat of judgement, since he seems to have settled easily into a fixed style in recent years.
Metheny has tended to the impressionistic rather than guitaristic while he has been with ECM. As a number of tracks on this record will attest, he has always maintained his skills as a guitar soloist, but the main emphasis has been on composition, arrangement and texture, all the while making eclectic use of current technology.
Metheny has not made much of the blues in recent years, though his early influences, Wes and Miles, were closer to them. He is fonder, on this showing, of major tonalities and open harmonies. As a result, most of his music sounds optimistic, buoyant, even joyous – and often naive. Like Gary Burton, Metheny seems to embrace a ‘white’ musical aesthetic; he makes more obvious use of rock ‘n’ roll dynamics than Burton, but even that musical clout is much softened at times.
Once the taste is acquired, there is much of value in this selection, ranging from the simply conceived Sueño Con Mexico, which, like Goin’ Ahead and Every Day, makes much use of acoustic guitar, to the more electric ensemble conceptions featuring Lyle Mays, and climaxing with Every Day from one of Metheny’s strongest blowing records, 80/81.
Discography
Sueño Con Mexico; (Cross The) Heartland; Travels; James (24.17) – “It’s For You”; Every Day (I Thank You); Goin’ Ahead (25.32)
Pat Metheny (g/b); plus various personnel: Lyle Mays (kyb); Mark Egan, Steve Rodby, Charlie Haden (b); Dan Gottlieb, Jack DeJohnette (d); Nana Vasconcelos (pc/v); Mike Brecker (ts). Selected from various ECM recordings, 1979-83.
(ECM 823 270-1)
