A rich legacy of artists have found it in themselves to trust their inner voice enough to record
profoundly intimate music and share it with the world.
Bill Evans' Conversations With Myself, Anthony Braxton's For Alto, John McLaughlin's
My Goals Beyond, Bill Frisell's Ghost Town, and Keith Jarrett's Spirits
all come to mind in this context.
One Quiet Night is Pat Metheny's third contribution to that
legacy.
His first foray into solo ground came with his 1979 album New Chautauqua, a project
consisting of overdubbed guitars. In 1992 he came out with the wonderful (but often reviled) Zero
Tolerance
For Silence. It was a tour-de-force of unrelentingly distorted electric guitar---the amp on that
session
went up to eleven! It was an honest sonic document by an honest artist searching for the entire arc
of his Muse.
This recording furthers the radii of the same arc, but with a fundamentally different tone.
On this latest offering, Metheny gives us exactly what the title promises--one quiet night of Pat
Metheny
playing alone in his home studio on his unusually-tuned baritone acoustic guitar. The results are a
shimmering
delicate gem. One Quiet Night was recorded with no overdubs and produced without the
usual fuss that the
perfectionist normally brings to a recording session, andthis method is a wise choice on
his part. His instrument imbues a rich, warm sound throughout, the baritone guitar and
Nashville tuning
enabling Metheny to cover a wide dynamic spectrum on the instrument, and his thoughtful selection
of songs
makes this a special recording to add to your collection. My one gripe is that he used too much
reverb and that
decision distances the music from this listener to some degree; but hey, he's the artist and that's the
way he
heard it!
One Quiet Night also reveals a different side of Metheny's approach to his chosen
instrument;
throughout
this effort the unique tuning that the baritone guitar affords takes him into new harmonic and melodic
landscapes. By utilizing such a tuning, he can retain the relative intervallic relationship of a
conventionally-
tuned instrument, but the overtones generated in this case are different than a conventionally-
tuned one,
thus opening up a world of unexplored sonic spaces. Metheny really comes alive in this context and
has
produced some beautifully heartfelt music.
The record includes Metheny originals, a cover of "Don't Know Why" (recently made
immensely popular by Norah
Jones), a deeply inspired rendition of Jarrett's "My Song," and a lush timeless version of
Gerry and the
Pacemakers' 1965 hit "Ferry 'Cross The Mersey" which reveals just how beautiful that
song can be when handled
with finesse and respect.
In the liner notes Metheny says, "This record is about essentially one sound, basically one
mood, and taking
the time to go deep inside that single world." It is a vast inner world filled with many pleasures
and surprises,
a journey well worth taking.
Visit the Warner Music Group at
www.wbjazz.com and Pat
Metheny at
www.patmethenygroup.com.
~ Farrell Lowe
