Album Reviews

Pat Metheny burst onto the scene in the mid-1970s as basically a fully formed, guitar-slinging compositional prodigy. While his first two albums bubbled under mainstream attention, his eponymously titled January 1978 Pat Metheny Group LP release on ECM Records — where I boarded the bus, after hearing a live radio broadcast — caught the ears of many young listeners seeking progressive new sounds.

That LP set the stage for Metheny’s commercial-breakthrough release on ECM, 1979’s American Garage, which hit No. 1 on the Billboard jazz albums chart and also crossed over onto the pop albums chart, where it reached No. 53. This kickstarted a phenomenal career that, nearly five-plus decades later, shows no signs of abating. I don’t know about you, but for the most part, whenever I hear Pat Metheny play, he still feels like a fresh, forward-looking, always-seeking, guitar-voice of the future!

For Metheny — who just turned 70, back on August 12 — the solo momentum began with his first album as a bandleader called Bright Size Life, originally issued in 1976 on ECM. According to the interwebs, Bright Size Life was cited in 2020 by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” and it was duly selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry. (You can read a bit more about the background of the new Bright Size Life reissue in AP editor Mike Mettler’s preview that posted here, back on June 27, 2024.)

Now, many of you familiar with the ECM label already know these are recordings renowned for their audiophile-worthy, high-fidelity production values. While the label has been hesitant to reveal too much about the inner magic that went into the making of the new Bright Size Life reissue LP that was released on August 2, 2024, we did learn some DNA details in an earlier Luminessence review of ours that likely still applies. The label itself has previously explained their recordings have been “all directly cut from the analogue master,” further noting that “there has not been any mix, since the original tapes were used without re-touching them. We are lucky to have excellent material which obviously ‘survived’ over the decades quite ‘healthily’.”

We also found that those particular Luminessence series reissues were pressed in the Netherlands by Record Industry. Given that the production values on Bright Size Life feel consistent with those releases, one can make a fairly logical assumption this new BSL reissue was probably crafted under similar circumstances.

Bright Size Life was recorded December 1975 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg, the original engineer was Martin Wieland, and the LP was produced by ECM Records founder Manfred Eicher. According to other online sources, the music was in part arranged by Gary Burton, who helped arrange the recording session. (Burton apparently was onsite with Metheny during the recording, but never received a production credit.)

The SRP for this new, seemingly standard-weight LP reissue of Bright Size Life — which comes in a plastic-lined audiophile-grade inner sleeve and is housed in an expanded gatefold design that now includes new photos from the archives — is $38.99, and it can be ordered via the Music Direct link graphic at the end of this review.

Some of you may not realize that, in the ‘70s, American pressings of ECM LPs were manufactured and distributed by Polydor. These weren’t always the greatest pressings, unfortunately, often sounding a bit noisy — a sad reality I could recognize even with the modest, hand-me-down hi-fi gear I was using at the time. Even as an aspiring record collector, I learned early on to seek out European pressings of Metheny’s recordings, which generally were quieter and more well-centered than the U.S. editions I’d tried — and they weren’t always easy to find, either.

In fact, I’d given up trying to find an LP copy of Bright Size Life long ago, so I’ve only had a CD version of it for quite some time. It is thus extra nice to have this album available on vinyl again, basking in its analog warmth without sacrificing that ever-appealing invisible noise floor I’d gotten used to on the digital releases.

Overall, I’m very pleased with this new ECM Luminessence series reissue of Bright Size Life. The vinyl is dark, well-centered, and utterly dead-quiet. The music just leaps out of the speakers. This impact feels especially powerful on songs like “Unquity Road” (Side 2, Track 2), with its unusual structures and supremely tight interplay between the trio of guitarist Metheny, bassist Jaco Pastorius, and drummer Bob Moses. The title tune, “Bright Size Life” (Side 1, Track 1), is also a fine showcase for not only Metheny’s then-futuristic-sounding guitar but also Pastorius’ otherworldly fretless bass playing. The trio’s cover of Ornette Coleman’s “Round Trip/Broadway Blues” (Side 2, Track 4) is also a powerhouse. As I remember, many of these tracks later became staples of the Pat Metheny Group’s live concert setlist.

One great thing about the larger-format 12-inch album cover aesthetic is the reinstating of liner notes to the overall album experience. While many CDs of course have liners, the smallish text makes them less compelling, hard to read, and easily forgotten. Frankly, I’d not opened the inner booklet on my CD for so long I’d forgotten about the aforementioned Gary Burton’s liner notes on Bright Size Life, which appear on the back cover of the new reissue LP. This is where he recounts first meeting and effectively discovering Metheny at one of his shows when he was 14 or 15 years old, and how, by 19 or so, he was in vibraphonist Burton’s band, already making waves in the jazz community.

These notes also recount some other information I’d overlooked, which led me to the interwebs for further clarification. With apologies to those reading this who always knew about it, somehow I had missed the note that Pat and Jaco had connected organically while in college. They played together on each other’s respective debut albums (Jaco’s technically being the 1974-recorded but 1976-released Jaco, on Improvising Artists) well before Jaco join the ranks of Weather Report and became a superstar. (Some still consider him to be the Jimi Hendrix of bass guitar.) This also explains why Metheny and Pastorius (seen below, via his photo on the gatefold) displayed such well-oiled, natural synergy when they backed Joni Mitchell on her 1980 Shadows and Light Tour. These two intensely gifted prodigies had come up in full flower together into the musical universe. The mind boggles, when you stop to think about it.

Relative to that, a recent Metheny quote issued by ECM offers us the artist’s own modern perspective about the album. “I could happily play all the music from Bright Size Life right now,” ECM recounts Metheny having said in an interview for the Library of Congress in 2021. “It still seems viable; the arguments there still seem valid and worth thinking about. [. . .] My sense at the time was that I wanted to make a record that might be the only record I would ever make. I hoped to make a statement on things that were important to me in terms of melody, harmony, trio playing, and even kind of life in general.”

Bright Size Life is a wonderful album, any way you approach listening to it. Whether you are a deep or casual fan of Pat Metheny’s music, this is one of the must-haves. And if you want to hear more of the evolution of Jaco Pastorius, it is an arguable ground zero containing some of his earliest recorded work. Or, if you are simply an audiophile looking for a great-sounding, timeless-feeling, modern-leaning jazz-fusion recording for your LP collection that is challenging without hammering you over the head with those bravado/shredding pyrotechnics common to the form, this album might be just the jam for you.

As far as our ratings go, we give an easy 9 for Music, and a 10 for Sound. It’s one of the essential early Pat Metheny recordings made with one of the top audiophile producers. This new edition of Bright Size Life is direct evidence of how the current ECM Records Luminessence series continues to deliver outstanding and more-than-welcome reissues worth adding to your collection. We here at AP wholly recommend you get the 2024 reissue of Bright Size Life sooner than later!

Mark Smotroff is an avid vinyl collector who has also worked in marketing communications for decades. He has reviewed music for AudiophileReview.com, among others, and you can see more of his impressive C.V. at LinkedIn.

PAT METHENY
BRIGHT SIZE LIFE
1LP (ECM)

Side 1
1. Bright Size Life
2. Sirabhorn
3. Unity Village
4. Missouri Uncompromised

Side 2
1. Midwestern Nights Dream
2. Unquity Road
3. Omaha Celebration
4. Round Trip/Broadway Blues