Mingus - Moves

Mingus Moves - contains Don Pullen on piano and George Adams on Tenor Sax. What a killer group that Mingus had assembled... I wish they had recorded more. And I hope I can stumble across their other recordings.

Pat Metheny Group - Travels

Got this at Maxwell Street Days... Nice live 2 record collection. I am always disappointed with how "San Lorenzo" drags...

Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, Nana Vascancellos

Side 1 is a 20 minute through orchestrated piece titles "As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls," which I guess is a play on words/cities/popular sayings.

I remember listening to a podcast where Pat described little details about the piece. Some trivia: Pat wanted Nana to play drum set for a section of the title piece. Nana refused, saying something along the lines of "I don't play drum set..." Well, Pat tried recording a basic drum beat, and it sounded terrible. Nana said, well I can do something better than that. So there is a climax in the song, and we hear snare drum backbeats on 2 and 4 thanks to Nana.

Also, the only vocals are a mysterious voice saying random numbers. There is a lot of speculation about the meaning, but the ECM engineer (Manfred or Jan Erik) had time cues recorded for certain entrances. The time cues were accidentally left on, and Pat liked it and kept them in.

More good thoughts about this record can be found on the ECM review of As Falls Wichita...

Patrick Matheny - New Chautauqua

Chautauqua will always remind me of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance...

The album cover of New Chautauqua reminds me of a motorcyclist on the road...

Sir Ian, serene. Rene's Snear.

Pat Metheny Group - "White Album" (Self-titled)

Pat Metheny's first album with the PMG. Highlight, by a longshot is the first song, "San Lorenzo."
"Phase Dance" is second, but sounds very dated.

Pat Metheny - Wotorcolors

This album is Pat's second on ECM, predates the PMG... Very similar in style. Very ECM mellow mood madness mang. My favorite is the Brian Eno-esque guitar solo piece called "Icefire"

On the credits, it say Metheny plays a 15 string guitar... I wonder if this is what that guitar sounded like??

John McLaughlin - My Goal's Beyond

John McLaughlin - My Goal's Beyond. I'm not sure if Goals should have an apostrophe... it appears that this LP has been re-released on many different labels, and some keep the apostrophe and some don't...

First side of the album is Johnny on overdubbed guitars (occasional cymbals) - highlights are "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" and "Follow Your Heart," which is a tune that wound up in the Real Book that is in 11/8 time...

(This version is by Joe Farrell)

I really like the second side, which of all bass players, includes the great Charlie Haden holding down an 11/8 vamp. The rest of the band appears to be Liebman's Lookout Farm + Mahavishnu Orchestra. Wild jamming ensues.