Quartet

Pat Metheny | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 19, 1996)
• Original Release Date: November 19, 1996
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Geffen Records
• ASIN: B000000OVE
• Also Available in: Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #69,638 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Introduction

2. When We Were Free

3. Montevideo

4. Take Me There

5. Seven Days

6. Oceana

7. Dismantling Utopia

8. Double Blind

9. Second Thought

10. Mojave

11. Badland

12. Glacier

13. Language Of Time

14. Sometimes I See

15. As I Am

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Music for the soul, body, and mind, August 1, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Quartet (Audio CD)

This CD is definitely a departure from the other Pat Metheny Group albums of recent. Being roughly half improvisation or near improvisation and half carefully crafted songs like we're used to hearing from the Group, we get to see a side of the band we haven't seen before. And the result is extremely worthwhile, even if not always immediately pleasant. The fact that it is music played solely by the four core members and recorded in a live fashion with little or no overdubs and almost exclusivly on acoustic instruments lends uniqueness to this Group recording. While still a very large leap away from Pat's Zero Tolerance for Silence, this CD contains some stretching material for casual Group listeners. I for one, however, grew musically through repeated listens, and over time found myself placing this CD right up there with my top favourites by Pat and the group. In addition to some of the "out-there" stuff (music for the mind, ie. Dismantling Utopia, Badla! nd, etc.), it contains in my opinion some of the Group's most heartfelt and beautiful ballads (so satisfying to the soul, ie. As I Am, Oceania, etc.), and a couple of very grooving tunes bearing the label of jazz more fittingly than what we've been hearing from them lately (the stuff for the body, ie. When We Were Free, Montevideo, Language of Time). I would recommend this underrated CD as the most complete and satisfying musical ride I've ever taken part in. And if you're like me, you'll also grow as a result of it!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Caught me by complete surprise!, June 12, 2002

By 

Todd Ebert (Long Beach California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Quartet (Audio CD)

Before buying this recording I had my sights set low, thinking that less (e.g. the absence of vocals by someone like Mark Ledford or Pedro Aznar, and the emphasis on acoustical instruments) would indeed lead to less. But nothing can be further than my truth about this brilliant recording. For one, having the band captured playing in a more loose, spontaneous format provides a rare glimpse, albeit just as creative and poetic in vision as the more standard pmg sound we tend to expect. It's hard to know where to begin describing this work, so here's a short list some of things I love about this recording:
i) The beautiful "oceania" (in particular Steve Rodby's bass playing and Metheny's brilliant use of the synth guitar)

ii) The musical silence and space that one hears (or does not hear!) in "mojave", "badland", and "glacier". These are three of my favorites, and if you've ever been to the badlands or mojave desert, you'll hopefully better appreciate these tunes and realize the genious behind them. Compare these tracks to some of the stuff from Coltrane's "meditations". In some sense they will seem like opposites (in that Coltrane was trying paint every spot on the canvass) but the expansiveness and meditative nature of both works for me at least imply a vast similarity. Note also how these longer, contemplative tunes complement so well the celebratory "language of time", and the gorgeous guitar solo provided by Metheny on that track.

iii) "double blind" for many of the same reasons for ii). Again note Coltrane's and Ornette Coleman's influence here.
iv) The last two tunes, "sometimes i see" and "as i am" are good examples of Metheny at his lyrically best on guitar.

With all this said, I can also see why many PMG fans may not enjoy this cd, simply because not every (in fact most) listener wants to hear something that demands so much attention and takes time to absorb and appreciate. I love Coltrane's "meditations", but I know that many listeners believe this is where he went of the deep end. No, it's where he went deep, searching for his personal musical truth which has no end.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Return to Bright Size Life, November 21, 2000

By 

Gavin Wilson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Quartet (Audio CD)

There will be many members of Metheny's fan club who are still struggling to digest 'Song X', the avant-garde album that he made with Ornette Coleman in the 1980s. The improvised content of 'Quartet' may not be as uncompromising as that, nor as grating as the industrial noise of the more recent 'Zero Tolerance ...'.

Nevertheless, the group's performances here travel a long way from the saccharine jazz-rock that has brought Pat and his loyal keyboardsman Lyle Mays such a huge international following. Instead of the usual lush, overblown rhapsodies, Quartet reminds me of the stark, ambient textures of Pat's early work for ECM.