Bright Size Life
Pat Metheny

This month the Pat Matheny Trio - Pat Matheny (guitar); Jaco Pastorius (bass guitar) and  Bob Moses (drums) - play the title track from Pat's 1976 debut album Bright Size Life. It lasts for just under 5 minutes, so there is time to hear it again - it is worth hearing the second time around.

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The songs were written when Pat Metheny was living in Boston and teaching at the Berklee School of Music. The album was recorded in December 1975 and released on the ECM label in March the following year.

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Theo Bleckmann in Jazztimes says: "I love how Metheny dives right into his solo with no hesitation. There’s a lightness and fluidity to it all that I respond to: The ethereal nature of some of his upward-spiraling lines landing right on these bluesy riffs - while locking in with Jaco Pastorius and Bob Moses - makes me giggle and sing along every time."

 

Les Black in Everything Jazz writes of the album that was initially poorly received: " ... The ECM studio discipline might partially constrain the live energy of the band, but this recording established many of the unique elements of Metheny’s oeuvre. All the pieces are written as vehicles for improvisation and follow the traditional bebop structure of head-solo-head, but they have complex elements that are signals of what was to come.  ... In their different ways, both Metheny and Pastorius were expanding the tonal capacity of their instruments. The classic jazz guitar – the Gibson ES-175N – took on an expanded, haunting tone in Metheny’s hands, while Pastorius’ electric fretless bass created a radically new sound in jazz that has influenced so much of the popular music that followed...."​