Pat Metheny

Guitarist Pat Metheny has always been a visionary, but the general public is most familiar with the world music/jazz fusion side of his personality. On this famed 1986 platter, Metheny teams up with free jazz blueprinters Ornette Coleman and Charlie Haden for a wild journey that balances controlled insanity with freewheeling swing.

In 1993, saxophonist Ornette Coleman described Song X to me as an album of music with "no
brand or race or style or color. Pat immersed himself in what I was doing. I immersed myself
in what Pat was doing. And a third thing came out." That "thing" was a hot, knotty union of
Pat Metheny's guitar modernism and Coleman's freed jazz. Two decades later, Song X is still
an exhilarating challenge, powered by bassist Charlie Haden and drummers Den... More >

I've always regarded Metheny as a harmless, well-meaning talent whose interests are as far from mine as, I don't know, Nino Rota's. It was nice that he admired Ornette, but his jazz was still way too tame. Well, never mind--this collaboration is the best pure jazz album Coleman's made since I started keeping track in the early '70s. No rock moves, and no funk, harmolodic or otherwise--it's all sweet lyricism, sonic comedy, and headlong invention. Metheny obviously doesn't deserve top billing, but he holds his own, especially on guitar synth, where his duet responses, ensemble parts, and choo-choo noises all fit in. And while rhythm stalwarts Charlie Haden and Jack DeJohnette make everything swinging, it's Metheny's taming effect that keeps the music in trim. (Grade - A)