Charlie Haden & Pat Metheny
Beyond The Missouri Sky

THE REVIEW

Question: is there music that can be enjoyed in 3D?
Well, the question is provocative but... if you want to get close to one of the best contemporary sounds, arm yourselves with 3D glasses and you'll see/attend the absolute masterpiece of this guitarist celebrated worldwide, who, more than ever in this album, made his unmistakable style palpable, fresh, refined, light, crystalline (in one word, "three-dimensional").

In this magical and evocative album (never was a title so spot-on!), together with his alter ego Charlie on double bass, the American guitarist delivers a collection of tracks that, in my opinion, remain unsurpassed in terms of writing, performance, and interpretative class. Perhaps it’s the vast Missouri sky that seems to envelop the tracks, perhaps it’s the measured interpretation focusing more on the gaps between a phrase and a double bass passage than on virtuoso soloing, or perhaps it’s the great sense of peace and relaxation that the pieces evoke. Whatever it is, this album holds an extremely high artistic (and I would say... therapeutic) value that reconciles anyone with the world and makes one understand that if God exists, he has cast a benevolent eye among these tracks.
Then, for heaven's sake, our subject has done equally valuable and "profound" things (which each of us in his small way knows, so I’ll spare you the list of titles!), but these "Short Stories" under the Missouri sky, in my opinion, have a little extra edge: a sort of 3D effect in music! Could such a thing be possible?