Pat Metheny - Selected Recordings: Rarum IX

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Music reviews of Selected Recordings: Rarum IX

Music Review: The best from the best
Rating: 5 Stars

The key questions for me, before getting the CD from Amazon, were:

1. Why only a single CD, when Messrs Jarrett and Garbarek got a double CD compilation?
2. What tracks would Pat choose?
3. What would the remastered tracks sound like? (The follow-up question is: why isn't ECM releasing its back-catalogue highlights on SACD and/or DVD-audio?)

Only Manfred Eicher, the genius behind ECM, can answer Q1. My guess is that Garbarek and Jarrett were rewarded for the intense loyalty they have shown to the ECM label from the start. The loss to Geffen in the mid-80s of a guitarist who had the potential to be ECM's biggest-ever star must have been a terrible shock for the German record company. (I wouldn't be surprised if this event helped trigger Eicher's move into more classical territory with Arvo Part etc.) Presumably David Geffen appealed to Metheny's US patriotism and his bank balance.

But Pat's copious liner notes for this compilation -- the longest I've seen in the :rarum series -- do not hint at any bad blood between Metheny and ECM. Metheny is no literary giant, but his notes repeatedly say how much he still enjoys playing many of the tunes selected here. (His anecdote which ends with "We still laugh about that one" is wonderfully mundane, by the way.)

As for Q2, the track selection is, for me, 95% immaculate. I would loved to have Offramp's 'Au Lait' and First Circle's 'Praise', but you have to discard so many masterpieces when the record company gives you just 75 minutes of CD space.(The selection is better incidentally than the 'Works' compilation released in the mid-80s on both CD and LP, which restricted editors to just 50 minutes.)

Q3. The sound quality has improved with digital remastering, but not to the highest standards now being set by SACD with 5.1. As a great fan of ECM's 'chamber music' sound in the 1970s, I have to say that its failure to maintain its sonic lead is my biggest disappointment about the label. ECM LPs used to cost a bit more than other LPs, because they were made from better, heavier label, and more effort was put into production and sonic fidelity. The advent of CD all but eliminated ECM's advantage, and ECM has been caught napping by the arrival of the new SACD and DVD-audio formats, which represent the current ultimate in sound quality.

But that's just me being perfectionist. Whether you're a committed Metheny fan or a new recruit, you're in for a treat with this package.

Description of Selected Recordings: Rarum IX

Broadway & Vocalists CDs

• Music > Styles
• Classical
• Jazz
• Pop