Day Trip - Dark Publications

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Editorial Reviews:

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Our job is to be deeply in the moment, says Pat Metheny. Day Trip, the first release from Metheny's current trio lineup, featuring bassist Christian McBride and drummer Antonio Sanchez, vividly depicts the group at one particularly inspired moment. As Metheny explains, We did it the old-school way. We'd been touring for about four or five years at different times and then went in and recorded, rather than making a record and touring behind it. We worked like gangbusters and finished in a day, so the title Day Trip fit. Besides, this is kind of a trip band; they take you on a journey. The Day Trip sessions were recorded at Manhattan's Right Track studio in late October 2005 and sequenced into a ten-song set earlier this year. The album is being released in conjunction with a national tour the trio will embark upon in February 2008. Metheny already reconvened the group this fall for an enthusiastically received series of small market dates at colleges and theatres; the trio ended its preliminary run with four concerts in South Africa. Reviews from the daily U.S. press along the way have been a compendium of superlatives. The Buffalo News declared, Metheny is sharing his musical soul with the two finest musicians of their generation. The Times Union of Albany concurred: Christian McBride on stand-up bass and drummer Antonio Sanchez wove their way into Metheny's music... and played with a telepathic virtuosity. And the Louisville Courier Journal summed up the nightly reaction to the trio's sets: It was a collaborative tour de force that earned a standing ovation. Christian is an amazing musician and Antonio is the drummer of this generation, says Metheny. 35 year-old bassist McBride had played alongside Roy Hargrove, Freddie Hubbard and others, before stepping up to lead his own group; 36 year-old drummer Sanchez is a member of The Pat Metheny Group. On Day Trip, Metheny offers plenty of excitement in his solos and the trio cranks up the funk on "The Red One", (a version of which was previously released on Metheny's collaboration with John Scofield "I Can See Your House From Here"). However they generally eschew flash for a more easy-going groove; McBride calls it a softer, more traditional sound. Perhaps most eloquent among these tracks is the elegiac, folk-like melody of "Is This America?" (Katrina 2005). 2007 was an exceptional year for Metheny.

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Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Great stuff.. January 29, 2008
35 out of 37 found this review helpful

The late jazz writer Richard Cook described Pat Metheny's enormous audience as a mixture of "progressive-rock listeners, fusion fans, and plain old lovers of guitar heroes". In other words, he manages to cover quite a few stylistic bases, but here's an album that will appeal most to the hard-core jazz listeners among Metheny's many fans.
'Metheny hooks up with his regular partners, Christian McBride on double bass and Antonio Sanchez on drums. As you'd expect for musicians who have played hundreds of dates together they're very comfortable in each other's company, with McBride's marvellously deep, rich bass really shining throughout'(BBC).
'In its early stages, "Day Trip" seems to fall into some familiar postbop traps (too much technique, overwrought themes) but it soon settles into some jubilant improvising from all three, on the kind of bluesy grooves, Latin swingers and inviting ballads that suggest Wes Montgomery has returned to life and found the hippest 21st-century world-music partners he could' (Guardian).
He dazzles on 10 new originals.
"Let's Move" is fast and boppish, "At Last You're Here" is a fine ballad, bound to become a classic - as might his bluesy "Calvin's Keys" and a bittersweet acoustic lament for flood-battered New Orleans, "Is This America?"
For technique, taste and originality, Pat's still the man.
He is alternately pastorally lyrical and hard-swinging, reminding us of his origins in the music of Wes Montgomery and Jim Hall respectively.
Apart from the unmemorable nature of some of the compositions, this is delightful stuff.
The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery
Hallmarks: The Best of Jim Hall

3 out of 5 stars

Good but more of the same January 31, 2008
24 out of 35 found this review helpful

With the Pat Metheny group, there is color, imagination and more organic structures (i.e., The Way Up). As a trio, the overall result is curiously dry and monochromatic. Pat basically performs with his hollow body (as opposed to his guitar synth) and he essentially employs the traditional head-solo(s)-head format, which gets old after a few tunes. While bass player Christian Bale's solos are jaw dropping indeed, I find Pat's soloing while fluid, is not very inspired. I'll play it a few more times and hope it grows on me.

My two cents.

5 out of 5 stars

Stunningly beautiful February 9, 2008
14 out of 17 found this review helpful

Guitarist Pat Metheny gets together with what he calls "two of the best people on earth"; drummer Antonio Sanchez and bassist Christian McBride - all three of them geniuses in their respective fields, if you ask me - for this beautiful set of 10 songs lasting just over one hour. I often find myself searching for words when reviewing any Pat Metheny project. What's there to say anyway, apart from, it's stunningly beautiful and just as good as (if not better than) I expected it to be? It is very true though, that no new musical ground is broken on this disc - hence the "more of the same" comment by a previous reviewer; a comment I tend to agree with - but that doesn't bother me much. I don't think I could ever get bored of music by Pat Metheny and the album loses no stars from me as a result.

Metheny plays electric guitar for the most, only choosing acoustic guitar on the thinly veiled political lament "Is This America? (katrina 2005)", on which McBride takes a bow to his bass, and then again on "Dreaming Trees". He also plays his trademark guitar synth on "When We Were Free", a cover of a song that originally appeared on the Pat Metheny Group 1996 album Quartet and again on "The Red One", another one I've heard before on I Can See Your House from Here, the 1994 album Pat made with John Scofield. Sanchez and McBride make sure the covers work, in that they both actually add something new to the originals, which were pretty awesome to begin with. Kudos to them.

The guitar/bass/drums trio format has always been my favourite of them all and this particular trio has not let me down. Pick this up if you're a Metheny fan or just interested in sampling some good jazz guitar. It's worth every penny.

One question though, Pat: When's the next PMG album due? It's been three years already!

3 out of 5 stars

Old recordings - Not from the current tour. January 31, 2008
12 out of 17 found this review helpful

Although this trio is out touring now, these are older recordings from the fall of 2005 (before the Mehldau project). Not that that's bad, but calling this a "new" album is somewhat misleading.

This is typical of Pat's more recent work - Absolutely great playing all around, but the tunes themselves are not particularly memorable. If you've kept up with Pat's music over the years, you'll recognise some of these tunes from earlier albums. It's nice to hear a different take on this material.

If you want another jazz guitar trio album, you won't go wrong here - Pat does this stuff better than just about anyone and this album holds up well along with his earlier trio work. Stronger tunes would've be nice, though...

4 out of 5 stars

More of the usual from Pat - Good/Bad? January 30, 2008
8 out of 11 found this review helpful

Another overall solid record with a stellar band. Christian's solos are typically astounding in technique while still beautifully musical, and his sound lends itself quite well to this trio. Sanchez, like Stewart, keeps the beat alive and sharp. A sort of album that would fill the background nicely during dinner, but also will entertain you when listened to with concentration.

I've heard just about all of Pat's recordings since '75; he was one of the first cats that made me excited about jazz. At this point, however, it's hard for me to get that excited upon hearing this because it just gets old - the phrasing style in his solos and his tone; I'll attribute it partly to an excess of hokey licks, glisses and 8th-note runs without substance [don't get me wrong he's an incredible player who can also be very lyrical]. And his compositional style, while some praise him for mixing it up between his group and trio etc, ultimately fails to break out of the same general character. It's great that he has that unique character, it's worth checking out if you're not familiar with it, but over time it becomes predictable and thus not exciting, which may not matter for some. All in all, if you're new specifically to his trio music, there's no reason not to start here aside from chronological.

I agree with the first reviewer's use of "unmemorable" with reference to the actual tunes. But I beg to differ that "hard-core" jazz listeners would particularly dig this in comparison to other contemporary artists: let's just say Holland, Iyer, Glasper, Mehldau, Moran, all of whom I personally find much more exciting. Neverthless, I do plan on checking out this album many more times. This is quality jazz, and you can still find plenty of excitement from what these great musicians are doing.

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