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
