New Album by Pat Metheny, Dream Box

Pat Metheny has just released his newest CD album, Dream Box – recorded when he was just being creative with his guitar in his downtime.

Always being inventive, Pat is composing almost every day.  When he composes, he not only writes his music on paper but he also records a rhythm track with the melody layered later and possibly a few choruses of improvised material over the rhythm tracks.  On this record, he has gone through his many hours of material and assembled some of his favorite songs.  Most of this material is original but he also has musings of a few standards from the American Songbook.

The songs he has selected are of a more ballad nature.  Pat has a number of excellent softer albums going back to his 1977 Watercolors album on ECM.  Add to that his more recent One Quiet Night (2003) and What’s It All About (2011) where he explores solo guitar playing. Of course, one of his best-selling albums is with Charlie Haden Beyond the Missouri Sky (short stories) which features almost all ballads.

The first four songs are all wonderful dreamy ballads before his excellent rendition of Russ Longs’ 2019 “Never Was Love.”  He follows this with a relaxed rendition of the Jule Styne/Sammy Cahn “I Fall in Love to Easily” that Frank Sinatra sang in the 1945 film Anchors Aweigh. Pat’s rendition has a contemplative texture of someone in heartfelt thought.  After another Metheny original Pat gives us a gentle rendition of Luiz Bonfa/Antonio Mania’s “Manha de Carnaval” often referred to as “Black Orpheus.”  The album concludes with Metheny’s rubato “Clouds Can’t Change the Sky.”

With “Dream Box”, Pat has put together a wonderful collection of his own musical musings as well as some fresh renditions of a few “time-tested” classic songs.  

More from Pat Metheny

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