Pat Metheny - Trio-Live (2000)

This two-disc release documents performances from the 2000 world tour of the Pat Metheny Trio, featuring Larry Grenadier on bass and Bill Stewart on drums. Like the trio's spectacular studio release earlier the same year, the live album draws on material that spans Metheny's career. The opener, in fact, is "Bright Size Life," the first track from Metheny's 1976 debut album of the same name. That this song was first played by the late supremo of the electric bass, Jaco Pastorius, gives Grenadier's acoustic bass interpretation a certain historical import. Another surprise is "Unity Village," which Metheny played as a solo piece on Bright Size Life; here it's heard with the full trio. Quite remarkably, Metheny manages to integrate all his various manifestations from over the years in this one simple group. One minute he's a pastoral melodicist ("The Bat," "Night Turns Into Day"), the next a post-bop sharpshooter ("All the Things You Are," "Giant Steps," "Soul Cowboy"), then an avant-noise experimentalist ("Faith Healer"), then a quirky multi-instrumentalist ("Counting Texas," for fretless 12-string guitar, and "Into the Dream," for 42-string guitar). Many of the tunes have appeared on Metheny albums past, but they're all thoroughly reinvented here. On that note, if you don't go for the mainstream sound of the Pat Metheny Group, you owe yourself a listen to "James" and "So May It Secretly Begin," two PMG staples that Metheny puts through the wringer, giving them new life as vehicles for burning trio improvisation. Paradoxically then, Trio Live can almost be thought of as a Metheny retrospective, even as it represents a bold step forward. The guitarist's stature is bolstered enormously by Grenadier and Stewart, who work a great deal but are still fresh, new faces on the jazz scene. And as for Metheny's playing, it seems to improve exponentially by the decade.