In the parlance of our time, Pat Metheny is a disruptor. Ever since he picked up a guitar and turned pro, he’s been daring the instrument to push further, to be more complete, for jazz guitar to be more harmonically conversant and sit in a space alongside the horns and the rhythm section. To be less parochial. To be more than the sum of its parts.
His latest album, MoonDial, out now via BMG, is unmistakably Metheny. Audaciously creative, it comprises reimagined jazz standards and original compositions, all performed and recorded solo. Even with the likes of Chick Corea’s You’re Everything, The Beatles’ Here, There and Everywhere, and Matt Dennis’ Angel Eyes familiar to us all, MoonDial is Metheny as you have never heard him before. It is Metheny as he has never played before. At least, not quite like this.
