Pat Metheny Group
Travels

After having read so much, now I'm writing too.

Here I've found well-written and knowledgeable reviews on all the albums I love the most, often old and quite strange stuff, and I can't believe this one is missing. I've tried and retried the various search options, but it just doesn't come up. Well yes, I accept the challenge destiny has set for me, I'm getting into it.

The fact is, I'm not able to give you an erudite review; I'd like you to read it as if it were a kind of note, a message in a bottle, a suggestion among friends sent on an unusually free Sunday morning.

It's about the double live album Travels by the Pat Metheny Group released in 1983.

The recordings date back to October/November 1982 and come from an American tour.

On drums we have Dan Gottlieb, who excellently does his job, instead of the usual Wertico, and the others who play are the usual ones you well know and I won't bother reminding you of. It's worth noting that the only percussionist present is Nana Vasconcelos, who occasionally dares some angelic vocalizations.

They weren't yet famous worldwide, and the energy perceived in the performances is very much that of those who are young and have a great future ahead. The sound is already mature, the harmonies grip and convince, the group's cohesion is admirable and the final product is refined and powerful at the same time.

When I listen to this album, I can almost see them, aided by two splendid photos with a strong red dominant that portray them in action inside the booklet. Free and unleashed, held together and guided by a sort of competitive trance made of lucid artistic awareness, clarity of thought, and purity of inspiration. In short, a moment of grace when everything was still to be done and the creative euphoria did not yet know the compromises, albeit commendable, of mature age.

There are eleven tracks, I allow myself to point out only the formidable "Are you going with me?" which was performed live even in the following years (in Verona in '98 I think they opened with this very piece), and the evocative "Farmer's trust" which accompanies the last poignant moments of the beautiful movie Fandango when Costner ponders his uncertain prospects.

But what you lovers of Pat, Lyle, and the wonderful Group will appreciate, if you take a listen, will be the sound that this work unleashes, a sound that expresses in a genuine and even more direct way all the beautiful things that would come later.

Happy listening, greetings to all