My Favorite Record of All Time!!!

I used to listen to this album before going to sleep every night, probably for about 5 years. It's nearly perfect, other than the fact that it desperately, desperately needs a remastering. Jaco's playing is incredible and open, free of the cliches he would later grasp hold of when he no longer had the control of his instrument (and mind) that he did when he was younger. Metheny, too, is playing open and ultra-creative without sounding like the new age goober he would later devolve into. And Bob Moses? Holy shit. This is a great trio, great tunes, great playing. My #1 desert island album.

Pat Metheny’s debut studio album is a good one, a trio date that finds him already laying down the distinctively cottony, slightly withdrawn tone and asymmetrical phrasing that would serve him well through most of the swerves in direction ahead. His original material, all of it lovely, bears the bracing air of his Midwestern upbringing, with titles like “Missouri Uncompromised,” “Midwestern Nights Dream,” and “Omaha Celebration.” There is also a sole harbinger of radical matters way down the road with the inclusion of a loose-jointed treatment of Ornette Coleman’s “Round Trip/Broadway Blues,” proving that Song X did not come from totally out of the blue. Besides the debut of Metheny, this CD also features one of the earliest recordings of Jaco Pastorius, a fully formed, well-matched contrapuntal force on electric bass, though content to leave the spotlight mostly to Metheny. Bob Moses, who like Metheny played in the Gary Burton Quintet at the time, is the drummer, and he can mix it up, too. – Richard S. Ginell