PAT METHENY GROUP
Quartet (Geffen)
Rating: *****
By Tristram Lozaw

   Pity the poor jazz guitarist, forever trying to ditch Wes Montgomery comparisons or “smooth jazz” and “fusion” tags. Pity the poor, small-minded listener who still ghetto-izes Pat Metheny’s fleet silkiness to such stereotypes. Because, despite his time in jazz’s pop spotlight, Metheny is a formidable experimenter who has directed bold, gate-crashing sessions with Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Haden, Joshua Redman and others. And as the various stylings of Quartet show, Metheny’s adventures can be as lively as they are broad.
   Never harsh, sometimes harmolodic, Quartet relies mostly on acoustic sounds for its pristine, 24-bit digital recording. The CD’s 15 tracks were drawn from the moment--quickly devised or improvised--and are high on invention. The uniquely cohesive, neo-melodic collage of “Dismantling Utopia” emerges from Lyle Mays’s well-placed piano sparkles against the detunings, quirky oscillations and musique-concrete percussives of drummer Paul Wertico. “Montevideo” zips along on rhythmic clatter akin to cowboys-and-Indians figures embroiled in a New Orleans romp. Steve Rodby’s menacing bass gurgles through “Mojave,” as well as “Badland,” which could serve as the groundwork for a sparse, brooding world music/classical piece.
   The CD has sweet moments as well: the gloriously romantic “When We Were Free,” the soft and plaintive “Seven Days” and the seductively chilly “Double Blind.” And though some synth-fusion cheese slips through, there’s usually something--Rodby’s punchy bass lines on “Language of Time,” for instance--to keep a too-New Age sonic palette at bay. Quartet should long be remembered as an album with many magnificent moments.