Even during the COVID lockdown, Pat Metheny keeps creating new music with new ideas and new combinations of musicians. His collection of classical guitarists was simply a stroke of genius, as is this recent idea that was interrupted by the lack of touring opportunities due to the draconian lockdown.
I caught this team of Metheny with his “new” team of James Francies/org-p-synth and Marcus Gilmore/dr back in ’19 and was blown away by their interplay. On this album, recorded back in Sept 2019 at Sony Hall, NYC, Metheny and company work through new arrangements of familiar material, but with a swinging edge to it that keeps it fresh. Metheny has his Wes Montgomery comfort food moments with Francies on the keys and Gilmore deftly swaying on the bluesy “Timeline” and relentless “Turnaround” with Francies using his keys or synth to supply or imply the bass lines. A pair of the tracks include the mini Orchestron that serves as an extra layer behind Glimore on the deeply grooved “It Starts When We Disappear” and guitar synth dominated “Zenith Blue”.
Metheny himself is richly inspired by the young stallions, gentle and tasty for “Better Days Ahead” and rocking out on “The Lodger”. Metheny, like Duke Ellington, is a master of freshly revisiting older material and making it sound new, as well as being a Sherlock Holmes in finding talent to team up with . Another stack of a gold brick in his Fort Knox of a catalogue.