Secret Story

Pat Metheny, Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 14, 1992)
• Original Release Date: July 14, 1992
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Geffen Records
• ASIN: B000000OSS
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #119,998 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Above The Treetops

2. Facing West

3. Cathedral In A Suitcase

4. Finding And Believing

5. The Longest Summer

6. Sunlight

7. Rain River

8. Always And Forever

9. See The World

10. As A Flower Blossoms (I Am Running To You)

11. Antonia

12. The Truth Will Always Be

13. Tell Her You Saw Me

14. Not To Be Forgotten (Our Final Hour)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The 'War and Peace' of jazz?, August 16, 2002

By 

spiral_mind (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secret Story (Audio CD)

I don't think that analogy is entirely accurate, but it's the closest one I can think of. Secret Story is an epic, a wide-reaching work of vast scope and limitless imagination. I realize I sound like some cheap PR man writing that, but I find it hard to convey the sheer magnificence of this music in simple terms. This is an album that's taken me four years to appreciate - since I'd been familiar with the more pedestrian (if such a term can even be applied to Metheny) Offramp and its like, I was unprepared for the grand symphonic bent of Secret Story. It's rooted in jazz, but just calling it jazz would be like calling Da Vinci a simple painter. Pat's keyboards and his trademark guitar tone are joined by the London Symphony and an occasional choir in a blend of styles that spans the globe. Its overall tone is almost new-agey, but it stretches so far beyond generic new age music as to make the term meaningless.

Pat's compositional skills are on display just as much as his phenomenal guitar work. "Facing West" soars above a vast landscape of lush green forests. "Finding and Believing" is Oriental funk, if such a thing even exists. A dreamy piano drifts through "The Longest Summer," painting pictures of blue cloudless skies. "See the World," the most similar to the songs on Pat's other albums, could have come straight from Offramp or Travels. I won't stretch this out by going track-by-track, but every piece here creates its own individual exotic atmosphere while contributing a vital part of the grand whole. Even 76 minutes seems like a short running time, considering just how much is packed into this little piece of plastic.

If you're not turned off by the description of new-age classical world-beat jazz (and you're prepared to give it a good while to grow on you), you'll find more feeling and depth to this album than I can sum up in words. It stands alone in the Metheny catalogue and in the world of jazz itself. This can be unassuming background wallpaper if you need to relax, or it can captivate your senses if you give it your full attention. It's sonic poetry of the highest order. Take a listen and hear what you've been missing.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of his greatest musical achievements, April 11, 2004

By 

Patrik Lemberg (Tammisaari Finland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secret Story (Audio CD)

Metheny's way of playing on this album might not seem exceptionally significant to fans who have listened to his music that's been produced during the last 12 years, but this album is a milestone in Metheny's guitar-playing; when it was released his playing presented new and personal ideas, licks, and sounds to his listeners. Since this album he has copied a lot of these elements in his guitar playing to other albums. There is a lick in particular (with hundreds of its own variations) that has been reoccurring almost everywhere he has been present since Secret Story, and that lick (present e.g. on track 2 at 2:35) is on the verge of overuse here, but it is new, and something that really personalizes his playing - a neat trademark.
In addition to members of the London Symphony Orchestra (whom are present throughout the album) a lot of known musicians guest; Will Lee, Charlie Haden, Steve Rodby, Anthony Jackson, Steve Ferrone, Paul Wertico, Gil Goldstein, Lyle Mays, and Toots Thielemans are only a few.
"Finding and Believing" and "The Truth Will Always Be" are two definitive 10-minute highlights of this (76+ min) album; both pieces feature thrilling string arrangements. On the latter Metheny plays a 3.5 minute long "guitar synth" solo that progresses incredibly beautifully after a 5+ minute introduction that is dynamically built up by percussion, synth "effects", and members of the LSO. No album is, on the whole, comparable to this; it's extremely personal, and the song titles suggest the moods quite accurately. The musicianship, compositions, arrangements, and instrumentation are beyond all praise. Pat Metheny is more than a jazz-trio guitar player. Here he plays--in addition to both electric and acoustic guitars--electric and acoustic keyboards. He uses a big variety of only beautiful guitar sounds throughout the album, and a cool synclavier accordion sound on "Antonia." This album is a definitive must for any Pat Metheny fan, and without doubt it will attract, and has attracted, people who aren't even familiar with the phrase "jazz".

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favorite escapes, December 25, 1999

By 

Larry Waschka, author of The Complete Idiot's... (Little Rock, Arkansas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secret Story (Audio CD)

Since 1992, this album has been my most prized cd. As a Pat Metheny fan, it's difficult to say it's my favorite because his works are like children...how do you pick a favorite. From the eerie sounds of the Royal Cambodian Choir in the beginning to the orchestral movements at the end, this is trully a story in music. It's a movie in sound waiting for a screenplay. Many nights in the Summer, I lay on a raft on a quiet lake with Secret Story playing on the dock. The songs seem to take star gazing to a new level. Thank you Pat for your attention to detail and imagination.