Two of my favorite Metheny records came from the mid-seventies and are both perfect examples of why I so appreciate his music. As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls, a "solo album" made with longtime musical cohort Lyle Mays, and OffRamp, made with the then four piece Pat Metheny Group, are amazing albums because of the moods and atmospheres they invoke. Listening to each, one can imagine driving along on a lonely two lane road on a pitch dark night. In fact, I've done so to both records on many occasions.

Sometime after those records came out, I lost track of the Pat Metheny Group. I'm not exactly sure why, but I just did.

I did see him play live twice though. Once it was as part of an all-star band that also included the late, great bassist Jaco Pastorius and the Brecker Brothers backing Joni Mitchell on a tour during the height of her own jazz phase. The other was in a small, now long gone Seattle music venue called the Place, where I unfortunately had a seat near the back of the house next to an ice machine which seemed to want to rattle during all the quiet parts.

Damned ice machine!

Anyway, on Imaginary Day Live I was instantly reminded of all the reasons I enjoyed the Pat Metheny Group so much. On this DVD, the group has gotten a bit bigger than the four piece I remember. They've expanded to a seven piece that now includes horns, and also seems to emphasize the percussion a lot more.

They've also expanded their musical repetoire quite a bit since I last remember. There are exotic elements of African based rhythms, and more of an international sort of world music flavor. But what the two core guys — Metheny himself and Mays, his longtime right hand man at the keys — haven't forgotten is how to create stunningly beautiful pieces of music that have this unique ability to carry you off into another place. It's just that now the locale has made a turn away from the atmospheric, and more towards the worldly exotic.

On this DVD, the Metheny Group is captured during a 1998 outdoor concert at a winery in Saratoga, CA. The material comes from their new at the time release Imaginary Day, an album that based on this performance is definitely in my purchasing future. The surroundings are beautiful, and as always with Eagle Rock's live concert DVDs, the digital 5.1 sound surrounds you as though you were actually there.