COMPOSERS: Pat Metheny
LABELS: Nonesuch
PERFORMER: Pat Metheny (guitar), Christian McBride (acoustic bass), Antonio Sanchez (drums)
CATALOGUE NO: Nonesuch 7559799561
Those who cherish Metheny for his exultant lyrical intensity and that distinctive smooth, rich guitar sound, stretching back to the sublime ‘James’ (from 1981’s Offramp) and beyond, will love this album.
Taped in one day during a recent US tour, this is the first studio outing for a star-studded trio that has been playing concerts around the globe since 2002 – and it shows.
Like all of Metheny’s best work, Day Trip provides a tantalising combination of astute musical focus and bracing improvisatory freedom, here synthesising the soaring lines of 1989’s Lette from Home (minus the Latin Americanisms) with a rejuvenating energy that recalls his bracing early period with ECM.
Those who found 1990’s Question and Answer (another trio album set down in a day) lacking in Metheny’s usual melodic radiance can rest assured that here it glows iridescently, illuminating everything from the gentle nostalgia of ‘At Last You’re here’ and ‘Dreaming Trees’ to the virtuoso patternings of ‘Let’s Move’. A triumph.