ALBUM RELEASE NEWS

The future is so bright, we gotta cue up some Pat Metheny vinyl, STAT. Well, ECM must have gotten wind of our wishes, for the renowned label has just announced it will reissue Metheny’s groundbreaking debut LP, March 1976’s Bright Size Life, on 180g vinyl on August 2, 2024, as part of their rightly vaunted Luminessence Series.

ECM directly, and exclusively, confirmed with AP that the Bright Size Life LP — as with all Luminessence Series reissues — was, quote, “cut from original analog masters, and there was no remastering.” (For more on what the Luminessence Series entails and how well some of its entries have fared on AP reviewer turntables, go here.)

Metheny debuted at ECM as a member of vibraharpist Gary Burton’s band on the 1974 ECM LP credited to The Gary Burton Quintet With Eberhard Weber, Ring. In the liner notes to Bright Size Life, Burton wrote, “I personally feel this is a great record, and recommend it to everyone. It’s positive and hot and simply excellent.”

In the press release announcing this LP reissue, Bright Size Life — Metheny’s first studio recording as a bandleader — is described as “the album that decisively put him on the map as a bright new force, with something fresh to say in the context of contemporary jazz.”

Recorded at Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg, West Germany, in December 1975, and produced by ECM founder Manfred Eicher, Bright Size Life — which was released in March 1976 (ECM 1073) — featured Metheny’s regular touring band of the day, with Bob Moses on drums and the then relatively unknown Jaco Pastorius on bass. For his part, Metheny plays 6-string guitar and electric 12-string guitar on Bright Size Life.

“I could happily play all the music from Bright Size Life right now,” Metheny said in an interview for the Library of Congress in 2021, which was also shared in the aforementioned official press release announcing this important reissue. “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.”

Personally speaking, I think it’s fair to say that, on the cusp of celebrating his 70th birthday on August 12, Pat Metheny has made a lifetime’s worth of valid and worthwhile musical statements ever since that debut LP, as the consistently vibrant Bright Size Life clearly set the tone for what was to come. We here at AP very much look forward to both hearing and reviewing the new Life LP as soon as it arrives.

PAT METHENY
BRIGHT SIZE LIFE
180g 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