PAT METHENY W/ CHARLIE HADEN & BILLY HIGGINS: REJOICING

The Calling!

The most of this album is modern jazz. But there isn't only jazz, here. There is some of fusion too. 'The Calling' is highly commendable to prog-heads, because It's the most experimental theme at this album. Really it's very interesting to people who like listening to avant-prog or Rio. Pat Metheny plays a synth guitar and the rhythm is quite free like the harmony. Besides I really like 'Story from a stranger' and 'Waiting for an answer'. They aren't 'only-jazz' works either.

'Jazzier' pieces are great too. I really enjoy 'Rejoicing', 'Blues for Pat' and 'Humpty Dumpty'.

Good, but not essencial. three stars

It's a bit difficult to speak about this album there. It's not a prog-rock. It's even not fusion. The real name is jazz ( post-bop with some experimentations).

Is it good or bad? Again, looking from the position of jazz, this album isn't bad at all. Plenty of Metheny soft guitar, balanced, a bit dry,soft, almost comfortable sound - quite usual atributes of average jazz recordings of that time. You even can find some sound experiments with ambient soundscapes ( guitar produced - there is not keyboards stated on the album cover). How interesting it is? I think not too much, if we 're speaking about prog fans.

Yes, you have usual softly delicate Metheny guitar there, but compositions are classic jazz, well balanced and a bit boring. Quality musicanship without great ideas. Could be more interesting for Metheny collectors and post-bop lovers.

This is one of the gems of Pat Metheny's vast catalogue, and really overlooked here on PA. A one-off trio with legendary jazz players Billy Higgins (drums) and Charlie Haden (bass), the album covers a lot of ground, but is always excellent. And while the album starts off very straight, it is not all straight jazz. I have seen other reviewers characterize PM's music as 'safe', which is one of the adjectives that could be applied to PM but ONLY to a small minority of his very diverse catalogue. This album contains both very safe and very unsafe music. Indeed, this album develops a direct and virtually-linear musical trajectory, from some of PM's most straight jazz music to some of his most experimental music over its 44 minutes. It begins with what I think is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever put to record, "Lonely Woman" - very quiet and all acoustic, not at all progressive, but a really exquisite piece of (straight jazz) music. Over the subsequent songs PM adds electric guitars, and by Story from a Stranger has shifted to his Roland synth-guitar. The last two tunes ("The Calling" and "Waiting for an Answer") are very experimental, improvised free-jazz with crazy synth-guitar solos, bordering on fusion and are, to my mind, exemplary of my idea of progressive. These constitute one of the many examples over PM's career of a spirit of musical discovery and innovation (similar in spirit and to me even evocative of one of my favourite-ever sections of music - Mike Ratledge's fuzz-organ solo at the beginning of Facelift on Soft Machine's album 'Third'). This album is thus not, as a whole, safe. It is pioneering - music for music's sake. It is a musical journey. You can't listen to just the first few tunes of this album and understand it - you need to sit out the whole thing. This is one of the albums I keep coming back to for inspiration (including music inspiration - I also compose music). It is not perfect, and some probably will just not like the free jazz at the end (or the straight jazz at the beginning) but for me it is an original, truly inspiring musical statement. I give it 9.0 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which is just enough to garner a 5-star PA rating.