Parallel Realities Review

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(More customer reviews)Having written or co-written more than half of the tracks on this album, it was exceedingly modest and generous of Pat Metheny not to insist that this be called a DeJohnette-Metheny album. Pat's compositions are up to his usual standard, but with the title track, 'Parallel Realities', he contributed a real corker. All Metheny Group fans have to have this CD for that track alone. The central part is great driving music, where all three musicians gets to improvise over a rhythm reminiscent of Pink Floyd's 'On The Run' from 'Dark Side of the Moon'.
My question about this CD is: how late did Herbie Hancock come to the project? Both DeJohnette and Metheny play keyboards on most of the tracks -- they even alternate on keyboard bass -- with Hancock only providing acoustic piano, except on the last track. The impression is of a well-structured two-man project, to which a pianist has been added at almost the last minute. Hancock is welcome, and his colourations add much to the tone of the whole album. But it would have been great if he had written a piece.
I saw the band when they went on tour to promote this and, strangely, Metheny's 'Question and Answer' album together. Rather than use keyboard bass, they employed acoustic maestro Dave Holland. It was a great UK concert and my only frustration was that the audience didn't demand an encore, to enable the band to play 'Parallel Realities'.
This was Metheny's first album of the 1990s, and in retrospect, he didn't quite have the stellar decade we had hoped. I sincerely believe that Metheny is the most important popular music composer of the last quarter of the 20th century. In the 80s he fulfilled so much of the promise that he had showed in the second half of the 70s. But in the 90s, rather than giving us something akin to say, the late quartets that Beethoven produced, Metheny has spent much of his time playing with the surviving jazz greats and producing the odd film soundtrack.
This album was another of Metheny's expeditions with the roster of jazz greats, and is enjoyable, if not profound, fusion music.

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