Search - Pat Metheny :: Watercolors (Shm)

Metheny in search of himself

Michael Hardin | South Duxbury, Vermont United States | 12/11/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I am a relatively new Pat Metheny fan but I have been working my way through jazz history for the last seven years or so, and Pat seems to be the next step. Anyone who says jazz died in the 60s clearly has no appreciation for the great work of Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, and artists like them through the seventies, but I will admit to thinking for a long time that nothing innovative came after them. I was wrong, as many Pat Metheny fans will attest to.



I bought this recently, after being really impressed and moved by Pat's first album, "Bright Size Life." This album follows in a similar vein; it's mellow, with midwest America and folk music influences, and many of the grooves eschew traditional swing but aren't hard enough to be funk and lack the polyrhythms to be Latin. The result is a kind of floating, straight-eighth note feel that lives on the cymbals, one I haven't heard on anything before Metheny's work. The title track, "Lakes," and "River Quay" all make use of this feel, and the result is a lot of rhythmic freedom and interaction for Pat, bassist Eberhard Weber, pianist Lyle Mays, and drummer Dan Gottlieb. The other tunes don't make as much use of this groove; "Icefire" is a haunting Metheny solo on 12 string guitar, and the suite is very minimalist in instrumentation as well. "Oasis" and "Sea Song" are atmospheric and don't have any strong rhythmic feel at all; one can see how they could be forerunners of new age music, albeit a lot more sophisticated in harmony.



With Pat Metheny, there is always the risk of hearing the music through the filters of the watered-down crap we call smooth jazz; Metheny's mellow sound clearly influenced a lot of inferior (.......). But on tunes like "Lakes," with its ultra-hip set of chord changes, or the title track's shifting time signatures, the only thing "smooth" about this music is how seamlessly it all fits together. That having been said, I have a couple of gripes about this record. Having heard the next album Metheny would record, the self-titled "Pat Metheny Group," this album seems a little too eclectic to hang together, even with the water theme to serve as a thread. It's as if Pat was trying to figure out which direction to go, and some are more successful than others. I love the title track, "Lakes," "River Quay," and to a lesser extent "Icefire" and the suite, but the more new age sounding tunes wander a little too much to hold my attention. Also, Lyle Mays at this point sounds like a Keith Jarrett (......) (forgivable, since Jarrett was top dog on the ECM label at this point and ever since) and his use of two grace notes at the beginning of almost every phrase gets annoying after a while. Still, his playing is really tasty and compliments Metheny's conception really really well. It's no wonder that the two would stay together for 30 years, continuing to make music.



All in all, this album has some great moments but is not perfect. I enjoy it a lot and would recommend it, along with "Bright Size Life," to jazz fans looking to get into Pat Metheny. It is also fairly accessible to non-jazz fans, since there is nothing overtly sonically offensive, even though some people might find a couple of these tunes a little strange upon closer listening. There is a lot of good and very little to complain about with this brilliant but inconsistent album. Highly recommended."

Beauty, Inspiration, Purity

Gregory D. Maland | Walnut Creek, CA | 03/18/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I stopped reading other reviews for this album, because we're all saying the same thing, yet, I still want to say it myself. I mean, we're all listening to this music, and it's just resonating with some place inside that is music. Resonating in a special, perfect, magical way. Pat and Lyle are so beautiful together in their original chemistry -- the open blue sky of their sound. I feel a warm breeze in my mind, no worries, and amazement at the beauty of it all."