Pat Metheny Group: Pat Metheny (6- & 12-string guitars); Lyle Mays (autoharp, piano, synthesizer); Mark Egan (bass); Dan Gottlieb (drums).
Recorded at Talent Studio, Oslo, Norway in January 1978.
Personnel: Pat Metheny (guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar); Lyle Mays (autoharp, piano, electric organ, Oberheim synthesizer); Mark Egan (electric bass); Danny Gottlieb (drums).
Guitarist Pat Metheny's atmospheric, "smooth" (when that word didn't carry ugly connotations) jazz was just about ready to set the world afire when this Pat Metheny Group effort hit the racks. Metheny's was one of the tighter outfits in modern jazz when this eponymous album was released in 1978 on ECM, the label that really mattered for them in the '70s.
The Group's idiosyncratic blending of folk, blues stylings, improv spaciness, and supple rock underpinnings were unlike anything then happening in jazz. The opener, "San Lorenzo," establishes the mood. Ten-plus minutes of shimmering cymbals pierce a veil of stark bass, luminescent synthesizer motifs, and, of course, Metheny's resolutely gorgeous six- and 12-string picking. The music refracts differing hues in a prismatic puzzle. Sparse and beautiful.
