Pat Metheny calls his new just-Pat album Dream Box a unique one, “not like any record I’ve done before.” And, sure, it’s out of character for him to end up with a LP virtually by accident when he revisited some tunes that he wrote and filed away. But I hear him playing a lead guitar overdubbing a rhythm guitar with no one else involved and it sure smells like a follow-up to Metheny’s 1979 under-appreciated classic New Chautauqua.
Both albums deliver fresh Metheny originals unadorned by taut band arrangements with Pat mostly laying back and letting his arresting strains take center stage. “From the Mountains” with its acoustic rhythm and electric lead has that signature folk melody of his where he makes it more interesting by layering on additional chords, an approach that dates back to the earlier record and before. Also quintessential is that creamy tones of a baritone and his signature hollow-bodied electric guitars, which are immaculately captured.
“The Waves Are Not the Ocean” progresses slowly, allowing you to hear every chime, every little note bend, those little things that separate PM from the pack in the crowded field of great guitarists. The key of “Ole & Gard” floats as the chord progression wanders from one patch of harmonic bliss to another.
Metheny elected to fill one-third of this nine-track program with covers, but these aren’t pop classics a la What’s It All About. Rather, his selection of other people’s songs is random except that these are melodies that connect with him deeply enough to put alongside his own. “I Fall In Love Too Easily” is the best known of these, where Metheny’s pretty lyricism could have been derived from Bill Evans’ or Chet Baker’s readings of the song.
“Never Was Love” does sound like a classic pop song but it’s an obscure 1982 jazz-pop tune from Russ Long. Metheny sticks close to the original, knowing it really needs no alteration. He does the same for the Brazilian jazz standard “Morning of the Carnival” by Luiz Bonfa, once again expressing his longtime love of music from that South American country.
What Dream Box might lack in the whimsy and adventure of New Chautauqua is made up by gorgeous, carefully constructed melodies. Pat Metheny produces a solid set of intimate, heartfelt numbers and reminds us that decades later, there remains no guitarist who delivers those better.
Dream Box (Modern Recordings) is now available, at all the usual outlets.
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