Travels

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Customer reviews

review by: Cirenor date: 2008-08-12 rating:
The beginning of a lifetime love
I had become aware of Pat Metheny from the TV screening of Joni Mitchell - Shadows and Light, when this young guy went into this guitar solo whose tone and phrasing were like nothing heard before on Earth. I had always responded to music visually and did not yet know that this condition was called synaesthesia, and to this day feel sorry for those who cannot share this experience. With Pat's solo it was like someone was painting the whole sky with a huge brush of liquid silver, accompanied by a feeling of utter tenderness and compassion. (No drugs, honest)

Soon after, a friend of mine tracked down this album, Travels, and my first hearing was of the majestic opening track, Are you Going With Me? surging from his open attic window, across the rooftops of Leeds Bedsit land (he'd probably have got an ASBO now), and immediately knew who it was without having to be told, just from the pictures going off in my head.

Again, Are you Going with Me?, features a guitar sound unlike anything heard till then, like Whale song from Saturn. It was actually a midi guitar but it was the first time I'd heard a midi guitar used to make real music and not just as a gimick. Even twenty years later, whenever I drive west, into a sunset, this is what goes on the car player.

The next song, The Trees, The Sky is just that. Swooping over endless mountains and valleys of trees, and err..., sky. There is a country bluegrass element here, but amalgamated with jazz of the utmost sophistication. Again, a thing never heard before.

After that we get what for me is the best of the best - Goodbye. It is compositionally the most sophisticated on the album. I would defy anyone with a bit of musical nous (even quite a bit actually) to figure out how the chords are moving in this piece. It is all over the place and yet with nothing harsh in it at all, just infinite kindness. This is a backing for a guitar solo that just climbs and climbs until you've nowhere else to go but out of the top of your own head. Then you are bought back down as gently as a feather.

The next two songs, Phase Dance and Straight on Red are very lively, upbeat songs that feature the stereo phasing that was another Metheny signature guitar sound. They also feature great solos from Lyle Mays, my favourite pianist of the modern jazz age, whose spirit and musical values are so uncannily close to Pat's own.

Disc 1 ends with the lovely Farmer's Trust. Another one with a bluegrass feel but more of a six in the morning walk through a misty farmscape with the land just waking up.

The second disc has more fine songs, with gorgeous solos from both Pat and Lyle throughout, but the standout for me is the twenty minutes-ish revisioning of their amazing title piece from the earlier As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls album. Whereas the album version was a subtly ethereal ambient affair, for the live performance it was turned into the sonic equivalent of going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. The piece again abounds with sounds the like of which had not been heard before. Polynesian bell tones, strange melting glissandos, phased shimmerings and walls of sparkles. It's an absolute conceptual masterpiece that shows up the tedious experiments of the Stockhausens and Cages for the vacuous nonsense they are.

Disc 2 ends with the beautiful and tender San Lorenzo which includes what is arguably the best of Lyle's piano solos on the whole set.

There is nothing of anger or harshness in these pieces. No teenage angst or existential maunderings. As such, they won't have mass appeal. However, there is excitement, there is exhilaration and there is kindness and compassion. These songs provide a soundtrack for the lives of those who know that the world is truly beautiful, despite its darkness, and for whom each day is a blessing. As such, that makes this music with a truly spiritual dimension.

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review by: date: 2007-06-01 rating:
I can never listen to this enough
The textures and soundscapes created by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays (with the tremendous addition of Nana Vasconcelos) make this an unforgettable journey into the pleasant depths of what modern instrumental (jazz?) music can be.

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review by: date: 2006-09-23 rating:
Get on board for the musical journey of your life
If you could pick one album to have with you at all times - pick this one. Travels is a musical journey through many styles - composed by an artist who has pure genius and performed by musicians who actually care about music. I'm not going to pick out individual tracks, as the sum of the tracks together is what makes it so great. The inspiration for many of the tracks seems to come from the great mid-western landscapes of Missouri - it is easy to imagine those landcapes as you listen to this album. For any mood, occasion, this album is as good as music gets. The soundtrack for my life. Buy it any shelve your other cds.


review by: date: 2002-01-05 rating:
Young Live Metheney Group's Epic Musical Voyage
I confess that the opening tune 'Are You Going With Me' has long been a dependable drug free stress release companion. Its two minute intro by the entire ensemble softly builds an atmosphere that suggests something truly ground breaking is about to be unleashed. It is in the form of the most innovitive guitar sound of its time. It is easy to mistake Pat's guitar for an harmonica at first until it becomes gradually apparent that not even the genius of Larry Adler could conjure up sounds of this dimension. Once a trombonist Pat's unique guitar phrasing reminds me more of a brass instument and at times mimics the sound of a singing whale.
This is probably their most widely appreciated anthem which lays the ground for a euphoric musical voyage of alternating exhileration and relaxation which makes the trip the most pleasurable musical journey I have endured.
Steve Rodby, now installed on bass with a less complex sound than his predessors, and percussionist Nana Vasconcelos, adding a Brazillian flavour have realy kicked the band into a new stride on these 1982 live recordings.
Disc one winds down with the exquisite slow classical style that is 'Farmers Trust'.
Disc two strides out purposefully with the contemplative 'Extradition', followed by the lullaby,'Going Ahead' before the storm, 'Wichita Falls' a menacingly turbulent tune, resolved by the serene calmness of 'Travels'.
'Song for Bilbao' is a fanfare for the safe return of thr musicians at their journy's end.
This remarkable exploration closes with a track from their trio days,'San Lorenzo' as a reflection and modest but majestic celebration of this fantastic trip.

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