Watercolors

Personnel: Pat Metheny (guitar, 12-string guitar, 15-string harpguitar); Lyle Mays (piano); Eberhard Weber (bass); Dan Gottlieb (drums).
Recorded at Talent Studios, Oslo, Norway in February 1977.
Pat Metheny's WATERCOLORS is sonically a much simpler record than many of his regular group's albums, but it's nonetheless a musically engaging venture that once again challenges the parameters of modern jazz. With his longtime partner keyboardist Lyle Mays, European bassist Eberhard Weber, and drummer Danny Gottlieb, Metheny leads the listener through a galaxy of ethereal moods, dancing rhythms, and soaring melodies. Add to this the underlying theme of water, and Metheny has all the ingredients for a musical masterpiece.
As expected, the music has the European New Age quality that is imbued on most ECM discs, but Metheny's knack for creating pastoral colors forged with rich musical foundations is as strong as ever. Whether it's on dancing quartet pieces like the opening title track and the delightfully melodic "Lakes" or programmatic swathes of expression like the solo piece "Icefire," Metheny displays his signature flowing style that defines him as one of the guitar world's most gifted artists. Mays, Weber, and Gottlieb form a musical union that ebbs and flows gracefully, tastefully supporting the leader's cascading lines. Other noteworthy tracks are the mid-tempo groove piece "River Quay," a boundary-stretching improvisational suite, and the epic mood piece "Sea Song."