Pat Metheny From This Place LP

TAS Rated 5/5 Music, 4/5 Sonics in the April 2020 Issue of The Absolute Sound!

One Of TAS' Ten Best Jazz Albums of 2020!

"Since his 1976 landmark debut, Bright Size Life, Pat Metheny has produced some of the most varied and potent musical statements of the last 40 years. This time the maestro has outdone himself. Accompanied by pianist Gwilym Simcock, bassist Linda Oh, and drummer Antonio Sanchez, Metheny also employs the Hollywood Studio Symphony to enhance the proceedings with lush stgrings and rich orchestration. This large canvas endeavor kicks off with the epic "America Undefined" and continues with the dynamic "Wide and Far" before settling into the intimate ballad "You Are" and the lyrical guitar synth number "Same River". Guest Gregoire Maret contributes plaintive harmonica on "The Past In Us", and Meshel Ndegeocello's hushed, moody vocals set the perfect tone on the solemn title track, a kind of protest song with a hopeful resolution written by Metheny the day after the 2016 presidential election. The guitarist's signature chops are in full effect on "Pathmaker", the energized buleria "Everything Explained", and the mellow "Sixty-Six", while his unabashedly romantic side emerges on the closer, "Love May Take A While". Metheny's magnum opus is a soul-stirring, fully realized offering that comes directly from his heart." - Bill Milkowski, The Absolute Sound Magazine, April 2020

The record features ten compositions by Metheny, who is joined by his long-time drummer, Antonio Sanchez, Malaysian/Australian bassist Linda May Han Oh, and British pianist Gwilym Simcock as well as the Hollywood Studio Symphony conducted by Joel McNeely. Meshell Ndegeocello (vocals), Gregoire Maret (harmonica), and Luis Conte (percussion) are special guests on From This Place, Metheny's first album of new material since 2014's Kin (←→). Metheny, Simcock, Oh, and Sanchez begin an extensive international tour in the New Year.

"From This Place?is one of the records I have been waiting to make my whole life," Metheny says. "It is a kind of musical culmination, reflecting a wide range of expressions that have interested me over the years, scaled across a large canvas, presented in a way that offers the kind of opportunities for communication that can only be earned with a group of musicians who have spent hundreds of nights together on the bandstand."

Over the course of more than three decades, guitarist Pat Metheny has set himself apart from the jazz mainstream, expanding and blurring boundaries and musical styles. His record-setting body of work includes?twenty?Grammy Awards in twelve separate categories and in an amazing streak was the only bandleader to win Grammy Awards for seven consecutive releases; a series of influential trio recordings; award-winning solo albums; scores for hit Hollywood motion pictures; and collaborations and duets with major artists?like?Ornette Coleman, Steve Reich, Charlie Haden, Brad Mehldau, and many others.