Bright size life

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Bright size life
Studio album by Pat Metheny

Publication
(s)

1976

admission

December 1975

Label (s) ECM records

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

Jazz, fusion

Title (number)

8th

running time

37:06

occupation Pat Metheny, Jaco Pastorius and Bob Moses

production

Manfred Eicher

Studio (s)

Recording studio Bauer , Ludwigsburg, Germany

chronology
- Bright size life Watercolors

(1977)

Pat Metheny (2010)

Bright Size Life is the debut album by American jazz guitarist Pat Metheny , which he recorded in a trio with bassist Jaco Pastorius and drummer Bob Moses .

album

The album was recorded in December 1975 at the Bauer recording studio in Ludwigsburg and released in 1976 on ECM Records . Pat Metheny, who for Joachim-Ernst Behrendt and Günther Hülsmann is “a magician of melody”, was 21 years old when his debut album was released. By then he had already worked as a sideman on three albums, in 1974 with Jaco Pastorius , Bruce Ditmas and Paul Bley in a joint album on the Improvising Artists label, also in 1974 on the album Ring of the Gary Burton Quintet with Eberhard Weber (ECM 1051) and in 1975 with Album Dreams So Real by the Gary Burton Quintet (ECM 1072, 1975). Jaco Pastorius, the bassist of Bright Size Life , knew Metheny from his student days at the University of Miami and Bob Moses, the album's drummer, he had met with the Gary Burton Quintet.

For the anthology Jazz-Klassiker, “the album ... exudes something like sensitive optimism from the first note - joy of playing paired with sensitivity, freshness, something narrative and, despite all the playful finesse and complexity of the material, a decidedly captivating innocence. Much of this also resonates in the title of the record: Life, in a bright format, in a great light. Alongside all the dark heroes of jazz tortured by racial discrimination, alcohol and drugs, Pat Matheny, this radiant, brilliantly gifted guitarist ... in the mid-1970s, embodied a new type of jazz musician. "

In an interview in Guitar Extra! From 1990, Pat Metheny spoke about the musical influences of Bright Size Life that led to the album's unique sound:

“To me, Jim Hall was really the father, not just for me, but for almost all the other young guitar players, including John Scofield, Bill Frisell, John Abercrombie, Mick Goodrick. All of us are very, very much descendants of things that he discovered… And also Wes (Montgonery's) thing had a very, very strong effect on me in terms of melodic continuity. "

“To me, Jim Hall was really the father, not just to me, but to almost every other young guitarist, including John Scofield, Bill Frisell, John Abercrombie, Mick Goodrick. All of us are to a large extent descendants of things he discovered ... And Wes (Montgonery) playing had a very, very strong effect on me in terms of melodic continuity. "

He also commented on the initially muted reception of the album and his personal feelings after the recording:

“At the time that record came out, it didn't get all that much attention. It got kind of mixed reviews. I have a different perspective on it now than I did then, because to tell you the truth, after we did Bright Size Life I couldn't listen to it for about seven years. I thought it was terrible. It went OK, and it was fun, and Jaco was really wild; it was the first time he'd been to Europe, and he was really a high energy kind of guy, so it was exciting, but I remember the whole time feeling like, 'I can play better than this.' And it was like every jazz record, done very fast, like in one day. From my perspective now, 15 years later, that's probably one of the best records I've ever made. "

“At the time the record came out, it wasn't getting that much attention. It had kind of mixed reviews. I have a different view of it now than I did then because, to tell the truth, after we did Bright Size Life, I couldn't hear the album for about seven years. I thought it was terrible. It went well, and it was fun, and Jaco was really wild. It was the first time he was in Europe and he was full of energy, it was exciting, but I remember feeling all the time, 'I can play better than that.' It was like any jazz album that was made very quickly, almost in a day. From my perspective today, 15 years later, it's probably one of the best records I've ever made. "

In 2011, Bright Size Life , the first song on the album, was included in the jazz anthology Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology .

Track list

All pieces of music were composed by Pat Metheny, unless otherwise stated.

  1. Bright Size Life - 4:45
  2. Sirabhorn - 5:27
  3. Unity Village - 3:38
  4. Missouri Uncompromised - 4:13
  5. Midwestern Nights Dream - 6:00 am
  6. Unquity Road - 3:36
  7. Omaha Celebration - 4:17
  8. Round Trip / Broadway Blues ( Ornette Coleman ) - 4:58

Contributors

Musicians and their instruments

Production staff

  • Manfred Eicher - producer
  • Martin Wieland - sound engineer
  • Gary Burton - Liner Notes (December 21, 1975)
  • Dieter Bonhorst - layout
  • Roberto Masotti - Photography (Back Cover)
  • Rainer Kiedrowski - Photography (Cover)

reception

For guitarist Martin Taylor , Bright Size Life was “a turning point in jazz. Metheny took jazz in a direction that nobody had known before. He is a true visionary and undoubtedly one of the most important personalities in music. ”Richard S. Ginell awards 4.5 out of 5 stars in his review for Allmusic and says:“ Pat Metheny's debut studio album is a good one, a teamwork in a trio that already shows his unmistakable downy, slightly withdrawn tone and his asymmetrical phrasing, which should serve him well in the future. His source material, each of which is beautiful, reveals his upbringing in the Midwest with titles like Missouri Uncompromised , Midwestern Nights Dream and Omaha Celebration . There is also a harbinger of a more radical kind… through the inclusion of a loosely articulated treatment of Ornette Coleman's Round Trip / Broadway Blues , proving that Song X did not come entirely out of the blue. ” The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide awards 4, 5 out of 5 stars and thinks : “ Bright Size Life is an astonishingly precocious debut.” N. Freitag writes in Audio magazine: “An excellently recorded filigree work, which, in addition to pearly guitar lines, comes up with strong rocking and swinging rhythms.” And electric bass. ch write: “Pat Metheny's debut album Bright Size Life is now jazz history and a pleasure for everyone who likes and appreciates Pat, Bob Moses and especially Jaco. Bright Size Life is not only Pat Metheny's debut, but also one of the first productions (or the first ever) to feature legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius. ... It is very pleasant music, calm, soulful, melodious, with soundscapes and Pat as a sound painter. "

literature

  • Joachim-Ernst Behrend, Günther Huesmann: The jazz book. 7th edition. S. Fischer Verlag. Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-15964-2
  • Peter Niklas Wilson (ed.): Jazz classics. Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-030030-4
  • Brian Morton, Richard Cook: The Penguin Jazz Guide: The History of the Music in the 1000 Best Albums. Penguin Books Ltd., Kindle version, 2011, ISBN 978-0-14-195900-9 .
  • J. Swenson: The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide . Random House / Rolling Stone 2005, ISBN 0-394-72643-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Bright Size Life at discogs.com. Retrieved July 2, 2017 .
  2. ^ Joachim-Ernst Berendt, Günther Huesmann: Das Jazzbuch . 7th edition. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 978-3-596-15964-2 , p. 550 .
  3. ↑ a b Pat Metheney at jazzdisco.org. Retrieved July 8, 2017 .
  4. ↑ a b c Bright Size Life. 100greatestjazzalbums.blogspot.de, accessed on July 8, 2017 .
  5. ↑ Peter Niklas Wilson (ed.): Jazz classics . Reclam, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-030030-4 , pp. 797 .
  6. ↑ Jazz: The Smithsonian Anthology. discogs.com, accessed July 8, 2017 .
  7. ^ Brian Morton, Richard Cook: The Penguin Jazz Guide: The History of the Music in the 1000 Best Albums . Penguin Books Ltd., London / New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-14-195900-9 (English): “Bright Size Life was a turning point in jazz. Metheny took jazz into a direction that nobody else knew about. He's a true visionary and undoubtedly one of the most important figures in the music. "
  8. ↑ Bright Size Life. allmusic.com, accessed on July 4, 2017 (English): "Pat Metheny's debut studio album is a good one, a trio date that finds him already laying down the distinctively cottony, slightly withdrawn tone and asymmetrical phrasing that would serve him well through most of the swerves in direction ahead. His original material, all of it lovely, bears the bracing air of his Midwestern upbringing, with titles like "Missouri Uncompromised," "Midwestern Nights Dream," and "Omaha Celebration." There is also a sole harbinger of radical matters way down the road with the inclusion of a loose-jointed treatment of Ornette Coleman's "Round Trip / Broadway Blues," proving that Song X did not come from totally out of the blue. "
  9. ^ The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. jpc.de, accessed on July 4, 2017 : "Bright Size Life is an astonishingly precocious debut"
  10. ↑ Bright Size Life. jpc.de, accessed on July 2, 2017 (in the audio magazine issue 2/86 ).
  11. ↑ Bright Size Life. electrocbass.ch, accessed on July 4, 2017 .