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| Artists: Pat Metheny, Brad Mehldau
Label: Nonesuch
Category: Music
List Price: $18.98
Buy New: $9.78
You Save: $9.20 (48%)
New (26) Used (7) from $8.10
Avg. Customer Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 15536
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 104188
UPC: 075597999402
EAN: 0075597999402
ASIN: B000MRNTKO
Release Date: March 13, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: In cardboard sleeve, sealed, new
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 26-29 of 29 | | « PREV | | |
 Absolute genius March 17, 2007
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is a superb collaboration. Such beautiful, honest, subtle musical story telling. It's the most creatively that Metheny has played in years. Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard are absolute geniuses in their own right. And Brad Mehldau is just on a another plane - he is incredible.
The new quartet truly respects each others' styles, yet they don't play as individualists - they truly collaborate and amplify one another's work. The duos between Metheny and Mehldau are like a yin and yang dancing around one another - they just work together. Established structures emerge and then unwind in various directions in a way that just seems to make sense. Hard to put into words. It's sophisticated, beautiful, challenging, and exhilarating.
Very satisfying March 16, 2007
55 out of 58 found this review helpful
A continuation of the earlier historic meeting of these two seminal jazz artists, the eponymous Metheny/Mehldau disc which was released exactly six months earlier, Quartet reverses the proceedings, featuring mainly quartet numbers (Metheny, electric, acoustic, 42-string, and guitar synth; Mehldau, piano; Larry Grenadier, bass; and Jeff Ballard, drums, the last two the rhythm section of Mehldau's regular trio) and a few Metheny/Mehldau duos.
After repeated listenings, I'm convinced this disc displays all the earmarks of a classic--great songs, spectacular playing by the leaders, magical group interaction; and it's brilliantly recorded as well, with stunning clarity and imaging. The mercurial Metheny displays his full arsenal: lovely romantic acoustic musings on "Don't Wait"; the mysterioso/Celtic-sounding 42-string guitar on "The Sound of Water"; if not exactly guitar heroics, some serious e-guitar shredding on "Fear and Trembling"; the trademark synth guitar, going all the way back to at least Offramp, lighting up the anthemic "Towards the Light" and more gently gracing the balladic, samba-ish "Secret Beach". The highlight for me is the friendly/forbidding "En la Tierra Que no Olvida" (roughly translated, I believe, as "In the Land Where no One Lives"--nicely evoking the Scottish Highlands of the sleeve cover, or, perhaps some Scandinavian wastes, or even Patagonia, given the Latinate vibe) which lilts and gambols with measured frenzy, casually evoking "Are You Going with Me" and also exhibiting Mehldau's sly brilliance with Latin material.
Throughout, Mehldau displays his huge chops lightly worn, always finding the exact chordal voicings on his splendid comping, and soloing with a controlled abandon. But it's their dual lead approach, best demonstrated on "Santa Cruz Slacker," a loping bloozy number, that fully reveals these two players' genius, whether they're doubling a tricky melodic or rhythmic passage, or spinning out back-to-back solo statements, or simultaneously improvising, as they do near the end of the piece. This number also most fully displays Jeff Ballard's unique drum approach--hugely coloristic without too much busyness.
This disc, although perhaps not as wildly expressive of some of the more innovative contemporary jazz (one thinks, e.g., of Our Theory, Triosk, and The Claudia Quintet), nevertheless moves across the borders of classic and modern jazz with the ease and conviction one expects from two of this music's greatest masters. Very highly recommended.
Very satisfying March 13, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A continuation of the earlier historic meeting of these two seminal jazz artists, the eponymous Metheny/Mehldau disc which was released exactly six months earlier, Quartet reverses the proceedings, featuring mainly quartet numbers (Matheny, electric, acoustic, 42-string, and guitar synth; Mehldau, piano; Larry Grenadier, bass; and Jeff Ballard, drums, the last two the rhythm section of Mehldau's regular trio) and a few Metheny/Mehldau duos.
After repeated listenings, I'm convinced this disc displays all the earmarks of a classic--great songs, spectacular playing by the leaders, magical group interaction; and it's brilliantly recorded as well, with stunning clarity and imaging. The mercurial Metheny displays his full arsenal: lovely romantic acoustic musings on "Don't Wait"; the mysterioso/Celtic-sounding 42-string guitar on "The Sound of Water"; if not exactly guitar heroics, some serious e-guitar shredding on "Fear and Trembling"; the trademark synth guitar, going all the way back to at least Offramp, lighting up the anthemic "Towards the Light" and more gently gracing the balladic, samba-ish "Secret Beach". The highlight for me is the friendly/forbidding "En la Tierra Que no Olvida" (roughly translated, I believe, as "In the Land Where no One Lives"--nicely evoking the Scottish Highlands of the sleeve cover, or, perhaps some Scandinavian wastes, or even Patagonia, given the Latinate vibe) which lilts and gambols with measured frenzy, casually evoking "Are You Going with Me" and also exhibiting Mehldau's sly brilliance with Latin material.
Throughout, Mehldau displays his huge chops lightly worn, always finding the exact chordal voicings on his splendid comping, and soloing with a controlled abandon. But it's their dual lead approach, best demonstrated on "Santa Cruz Slacker," a loping bloozy number, that fully reveals these two players' genius, whether they're doubling a tricky melodic or rhythmic passage, or spinning out back-to-back solo statements, or simultaneously improvising, as they do near the end of the piece. This number also most fully displays Jeff Ballard's unique drum approach--hugely coloristic without too much busyness.
This disc, although perhaps not as wildly expressive of some of the more innovative contemporary jazz (one thinks, e.g., of Our Theory, Triosk, and The Claudia Quintet), nevertheless moves across the borders of classic and modern jazz with the ease and conviction one expects from two of this music's greatest masters. Very highly recommended.
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