One Quiet Night

by

Pat Metheny

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Pat Metheny has challenged the musical boundaries of his audience for over 25 years and his latest recording is no exception. One Quiet Night features Metheny performing alone, on a custom-made baritone guitar with a non-traditional folk tuning that accentuates the instrument's rich sound and warm resonant bass register. Recorded by Metheny in his New York City home, half of the material on the CD was captured on a single night in November 2001. In January 2003, he recorded the other half including two new original compositions, a reinterpretation of the popular Pat Metheny Group song "Last Train Home", and an eclectic group of covers: "Don't Know Why" from the 2002 Grammy award winning album by Norah Jones; "My Song" from jazz pianist Keith Jarrett; and the 1960s pop hit "Ferry Cross The Mersey" from the 'British invasion' band, Gerry and The Pacemakers.

Evocative at times of recordings made by the late Michael Hedges, Metheny has constructed a contemplative and deeply emotional set quite unlike anything he has released before. The fact that the November 2001 session was not originally intended for public consumption and was entirely improvisational in nature is a testament not only to Metheny's skill as a guitarist but also his innate sense of melody and harmonic structure.

Pat Metheny moves easily among varied musical settings: traditional jazz trios, post-bop experimental jazz, jazz-rock fusion, and polyrhythmic World Music, to name a few. One Quiet Night is a new color on the palette, a different texture to the canvas for Metheny but emminently satisfying. In the liner notes, Metheny hopes this album will offer his listeners "some peace and enjoyment". It should do both.

This is my second Pat Metheny album (the first being "Works"), so I can't compare it to other albums. I have, however, listened to enough Metheny borrowed from friends to know he has a distinct, contemporary jazz feel. I personally am not wild about his style, and I was drawn more to "Quiet's" acoustic nature than to the promise of extended Metheny improvisation, which constitutes a significant portion of the album.

Metheny, in my limited experience, has a somewhat limited range to his music - a polite way of saying, "Much of it sounds the same." He's a master, but like Bach: if you don't like baroque, stay away from Johann. And if you don't like contemporary, "light" jazz, stay away from Metheny. If the Metheny atmosphere is appealing to you, this recording will be a pleasure; if you're less than enthusiastic about Metheny's style, you'll get the feeling several times during your first listening that you've perhaps hit the "repeat" button inadvertently.

This is not to say it's a bad album, and its raw, unrehearsed edge adds to its "listenability." Still, for non-die-hard Metheny fans, it might come across as one-dimensional.

That being said, there are a few stunning moments on the album, ironically, it sounds best when Metheny is performing an arrangement of someone else's work - a cover, in other words, though "cover" hardly does justice to what Metheny does in his interpretations. Standouts include Harris' "Don't Know Why" and Jarrett's "My Song."

It's a good recording, overall, but it doesn't often find itself in my CD player . . .