Pat Metheny & Ornette Coleman: Song X

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Pat Metheny confounded fans and critics alike with this opening salvo for his new label, Geffen, delivering among the most uninhibited, collective meltdowns ever released on a major pop label. Song X served notice that this was one artist who refused to be pigeonholed. In joining forces with jazz maverick Ornette Coleman, Metheny midwifed a compelling declaration of principles on behalf of experimental musicians. Jack DeJohnette and Denardo Coleman throw down on acoustic and electronic percussion, and stalwart bassist Charlie Haden holds down the time. Metheny and Coleman journey through the interstellar regions of collective improvisation on the saxophonist's fulminating title tune and "Video Games" (with Metheny's room-full-of-mirrors synth guitar inventions) while unleashing a horde of killer bees on "Endangered Species." Still, for all the collective freneticism, the lyrical, swinging side of each artist is well represented on the Tex-Mex airs of "Trigonometry," the bluesy "Mob Job" and the elegant "Kathleen Grey." --Chip Stern

PAT METHENY: BRIGHT SIZE LIFE

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Larger ensembles may have provided Pat Metheny with his most visible successes, but he's repeatedly fired up his most fluid and personal playing in leaner trio settings, starting with this, his 1976 debut as a leader. Bob Moses brings both delicacy and effortless dynamics to his drumming, but it's the late Jaco Pastorius's lyrical electric bass that clinches the guitarist's coming-out party: with Metheny already displaying the liquid tone and exquisite touch that define his sound, old friend Pastorius radiates a sympathetic lyricism and unerring sense of swing. Metheny would match, but not transcend, this level of interplay in justly celebrated troikas with Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins (on Rejoicing) and Dave Holland and Roy Haynes (on Question and Answer). --Sam Sutherland.

PAT METHENY : TRIO 99 --> 00

Think "Pat Metheny trio record" and you'll probably recall his groundbreaking Bright Size Life or the more abstract Rejoicing (with Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins) or even Question and Answer (Dave Holland, Roy Haynes). Well, keep thinking. Trio 99-00 is the popular guitarist-composer's most straight-ahead, no-muss, no-fuss recording yet. Recorded over two days with the remarkable team of drummer Bill Stewart and bassist Larry Grenadier, Trio 99-00 covers much compositional and stylistic ground but is essentially a hard-bop-tinged blowing session. Metheny's Sonny Rollins-ish originals include "(Go) Get It," "Soul Cowboy" (featuring amazing chordal guitar), "What Do You Want?" and a blazing trio variation on "Lone Jack," which appeared on the first Pat Metheny Group album. Unusual choices are made throughout: a sensually swinging "Giant Steps," an elegant "A Lot of Livin' to Do," and inclusion of Wayne Shorter's queasy gem, "Capricorn." And as always, Pat can't help but get sentimental on acoustic guitar, culminating in the first studio rendition of "Travels." This isn't for the faint-hearted, nor those waiting for another PMG travelogue like We Live Here or Letter from Home. This is pure jazz slam, a trio showdown with the gloves off. --Ken Micallef

PAT METHENY : REJOICING

Metheny joins bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins, one of Ornette Coleman's finest rhythm pairings, for this 1983 recording. Rejoicing looks closely at Coleman's group dynamics and three of his tunes (though it's Horace Silver's "Lonely Woman," not Coleman's, that opens the album). The three mesh perfectly on Coleman's "Tears Inside," "Humpty Dumpty," and "Rejoicing," with Metheny generating long lines of melody over sprung rhythms. While the guitarist often shifts musical direction from CD to CD, his compositions on Rejoicing offer remarkable contrasts. He creates a rich overdub of electric and acoustic guitars for the ballad "Story from a Stranger," then generates an almost Albert Ayler-like sound for the intensely electric dirge "The Calling," the mood enhanced by Haden's bowed bass and animated by Higgins's free drumming. --Stuart Broomer