Bright Size Life sounds as fresh as it did all those years ago.
ECM 1073 / 552 3892
Pat Metheny (6-string guitar, electric 12-string guitar; Jaco Pastorius (bass); Bob Moses (drums)
Recorded December 1975
Time has a wonderful way of making one reflect again on music previously heard and perhaps then taken for granted or even forgotten about in the mists of time. This is certainly true of Pat Metheny’s ECM leadership debut, as the guitarist having been so prolific over the last thirty years has always kept moving forward and looking for new avenues of expression.
He has worked with everything and everyone from his own Pat Metheny Group initially as a quartet and then expanding the line up and sonic palette available to him, to his adventures with Ornette Coleman and sonic blow out with the solo guitar album Zero Tolerance for Silence. He also helped in pioneering the use of the guitar synthesizer and worked with David Bowie, but it is his work as a fine improviser and composer whose lyrical playing is instantly identifiable that he is primarily associated.
Listening again to Bright Size Life it is now appears that Metheny may have emerged on the scene already a fully-fledged artist with his own sound and concept. The material has a familiarity about it that is refreshing, but when placed in the context of what has followed, this release must surely now be viewed as the foundation for the house that Pat built.
From the opening notes of the title track the sound and lyrical contour of his composition is clearly heard and defines the path that he would follow, with a few minor deviations right up to the present day. Metheny, it seems always plays Metheny and it is only the setting and the musicians he plays with that changes.
Having made his label debut with Gary Burton on the vibraphone player’s Ring album from 1974, Metheny not only took encouragement from Burton but also borrowed members of his quintet. Drummer Bob Moses (Metheny would use Eberhard Weber who is also heard on Ring on his follow up) is the player cast here to take care of rhythm duties as bassist Pastorius is often heard in the trio as playing a game of tag between keeping a rhythmic foundation with Moses and contributing his own counter-melodies to the guitarist’s unfolding solos. What could be a risky game is smoothed over with Metheny’s use of overdubbing his own guitar accompaniment that seems to fill any gaps. This was taken a step further with the ‘solo’ Unity Village’ with Metheny overdubbing accompaniment to his own beautifully melodic lines in a satisfying piece of music making.
The following ‘Missouri Uncompromised’ is more in line of a classic guitar-bass-drums trio and Pastorius swings mightily aided and abetted by Moses, but is the pieces where the musicians break the mould a little that provides the best music. ‘Sirabhorn’ is a classic Metheny ballad and one can hear ideas on this piece that the guitarist would develop with Lyle Mays and the PMG, as does ‘Midwestern Nights Dream’.
Metheny’s interest in the music of Ornette Coleman brings the album to a conclusion, and would be another constant in the guitarist music as he would go onto play the great man’s composition with two of Ornette’s key collaborators in Billy Higgins and Charlie Haden on Rejoicing and a few years later with Coleman on Song X.
With Bright Size Life and the realisation that playing his own compositions was the way he could best express his ideas, Metheny had hit on the formula that would steer him right for many years to come. Along with a natural gift for melody and an inquisitive mind for new technology his sound has continued to evolve. What is remarkable however, is that the basis for this was already instilled in a musician so young, and with the wisdom and patience to let it develop.
The story is far from over, and with Metheny’s latest album MoonDial having just been released and now his debut available on vinyl as part of ECM’s Luminessence series the distance between the two may not be so great, and Bright Size Life sounds as fresh as it did all those years ago.
