Pat Metheny - 80/81

180-gram double LP, made in Germany

"Pat Metheny's credibility with the jazz community went way up with the release of this package, a superb collaboration with a quartet of outstanding jazz musicians that dared to be uncompromising at a time when most artists would have merely continued pursuing their electric commercial successes. From the disbanded Keith Jarrett American quartet came bassist Charlie Haden and tenor Dewey Redman — who alternates with and occasionally plays alongside tenor Michael Brecker — and Jack DeJohnette provides more combustible drumming than Metheny had ever experienced on record before.

"Yet Metheny's off-kilter wandering on solo electric guitar is a comfortable fit for the post-bop rhythmic crosscurrents of this music. Indeed, Haden and Metheny are in total sympathy, perhaps celebrating their mutual Missouri roots, and Metheny's difficult 'Pretty Scattered' — which he mockingly described as 'Guitar Revenge!' — nearly manages to stump even Redman and Brecker. The first of the 'Two Folk Songs' is a great example of the Metheny folk-jazz fusion, with furious strummed guitar underpinning Brecker's melodic line and excursions on the outside and DeJohnette's spectacular drums. Another remarkable track is 'Open,' a group improvisation that finds DeJohnette shaping the track's direction with a pushing solo and Metheny and the saxes emerging at the end." — AllMusic

Musicians:
Pat Metheny, guitar
Charlie Haden, bass
Jack DeJohnette, drums
Dewey Redman, tenor saxophone
Michael Brecker, tenor saxophone