Pat Metheny
Letter From Home

Hey yes... I promised myself and finally I did it... I found some time and here I am, reviewing a great jazz artist, a certain Pat Metheny :), who in 1989 composed what in my opinion is his best album: Letter From Home. The album, recorded, mixed, and mastered entirely digitally, enjoyed at the time a production among the best that an artist of Pat's caliber could afford; rich in great ideas, beautiful melodies, and so much love for music, the album is probably one of the purest, jazz-wise, that this musician has composed, since he will later opt for adopting a sound closer to jazz rock like Shawn Lane, just to make it clear Placed halfway between "First Circle" and "Still Life", Letter From Home presents itself as varied, colorful, carefree, and rich in rhythms from Brazilian music, all adorned by a splendid vocal performance by the talented Pedro Aznar, and this makes this album one of the highest points of Metheny's career. Composed of no less than 12 tracks, the album flows pleasantly and among very light and carefree songs, perhaps almost close to very refined pop and other significantly jazz songs, the album will keep us company for a good 59 minutes of pure music. Classy like few albums know how to be, it seems reductive and obvious to review song by song, so I'll just express all my love for this immense artist, who even in this album gives us, as always, splendid jazz gems, where the one that shines the most in my opinion is "Sleep Away", perhaps the least jazz, but certainly the most heartfelt and the one played most from the heart. I think it's necessary to acknowledge instead how capable Pat and his great band are, able to put all their infinite technique at the service of melody and passion. In short, well done Pat and thank you for gifting us once again with an extreme masterpiece of real music; I feel like recommending this purchase to all those who still do not have it in their collection of historic albums.