CD review: Pat Metheny – From This Place 2020: Video, CD cover

Pat Metheny’s new album, From This Place, will be released on Nonesuch Records on February 21, 2020.

The record features ten compositions by Metheny, who is joined by his long-time drummer, Antonio Sanchez, Malaysian/Australian bassist Linda May Han Oh, and British pianist Gwilym Simcock as well as the Hollywood Studio Symphony conducted by Joel McNeely. Meshell Ndegeocello (vocals), Gregoire Maret (harmonica), and Luis Conte (percussion) are special guests on From This Place, Metheny’s first album of new material since 2014’s Kin. Metheny, Simcock, Oh, and Sanchez begin an extensive international tour in the New Year.

Album preorders are available now in the Pat Metheny Store and the Nonesuch Store with an instant download of the opening track, “America Undefined,” and an exclusive, limited-edition print signed by Metheny; the limited-edition print is no longer available. The song is also available to stream at Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services.

“I have been waiting to make my whole life,” Metheny says. “It is a kind of musical culmination, reflecting a wide range of expressions that have interested me over the years, scaled across a large canvas, presented in a way that offers the kind of opportunities for communication that can only be earned with a group of musicians who have spent hundreds of nights together on the bandstand.”

Over the course of more than three decades, guitarist Pat Metheny has set himself apart from the jazz mainstream, expanding and blurring boundaries and musical styles. His record-setting body of work includes twenty Grammy Awards in twelve separate categories and in an amazing streak was the only bandleader to win Grammy Awards for seven consecutive releases; a series of influential trio recordings; award-winning solo albums; scores for hit Hollywood motion pictures; and collaborations and duets with major artists like Ornette Coleman, Steve Reich, Charlie Haden, Brad Mehldau, and many others.

1. America Undefined (13:22)
2. Wide and Far (8:27)
3. You Are (6:13)
4. Same River (6:43)
5. Pathmaker (8:20)
6. The Past in Us (6:24)
7. Everything Explained (6:52)
8. From This Place (4:40)
9. Sixty-Six (9:39)
10. Love May Take Awhile (5:57)