Meldau/Metheny: Thoughts?

The collaboration of these 2 is excellent. I bought it as soon as it was released & still listen to it frequently. T bone, I too wish there were more music posts but maybe most folks listen to gear & not new music.

btw, also listening alot to Madeleine Peyroux, Half the Perfect World, a nice jazz vocal album of mostly covers.

Not a bad collaboration, but not the equal of either artist's most recent ensemble work: Metheny's "The Way up" and Meldau's "House on Hill."

Dgarretson,
I agree that "The Way Up" is an excellent effort. Almost seems that Metheny wants to write a symphony. I do wish he would forget the synclavier (I think that's what it's called). I always find it distracting on recordings although it wasn't so bad live. As for "House On The Hill", I'll have to check it out.

This is an interesting pairing - two brilliant musicians that are a generation apart - yet whose styles seems to mesh well together. They are touring together - just a few gigs in some big symphony halls (too big a room - and pretty expensive) check out metheny's FREE podcast on itunes - has an episode dedicated to the mehldau record with interviews. melhdau says at one point "bill evans - never really listened to him - not really a fan - what's all the fuss?..." Whereas Pat has always been a huge evans fan - and this record has been compared to Jim Hall/Bill Evans Undercurrents - the pairing of gtr and pno is rare but interesting if you have two guys with this much talent.

I thought the album was ok, but not as good as some of their individual efforts. Meldau always blows me away. I think Day Is Done or Anything Goes are his best studio recording and Art of trio 3 and 4 are his best live stuff. Metheny isn't always my bag, but his live trio albums are good. Just my two cents.