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Pat Metheny doesn’t subscribe to the concept of genre. To the US jazz guitarist — sorry, I mean guitarist — music is music. Separating it into types is pointless. Like water, it will always find a way through. This pantheistic approach has brought him 20 Grammy awards in 12 different categories, the widest extent of wins of any artist. He is most closely associated with jazz fusion, especially through his work with the Pat Metheny Group, which he co-founded in 1977. But the former prodigy, given a university teaching post when he was just 17, has worked in many other fields too. He has composed film soundtracks, played straight-up jazz with greats such as Chick Corea, dipped into pop, experimented with avant-garde noise and immersed himself in Latin styles. MoonDial is an instrumental album of covers and new compositions, played alone on guitar. The set-up resembles 2003’s One Quiet Night and 2011’s What’s It All About, both of which won Grammys for the elaborately named category of “Best New Age, Ambient or Chant album”.
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The 13 tracks on MoonDial have the same delicacy and warmth as those earlier solo records but are lusher-sounding. They have been made with a new guitar specially designed by luthier Linda Manzer, a longtime collaborator — a baritone acoustic guitar with nylon strings, which the guitarist has tuned in a novel way. The tonal range goes from thrumming bass to a high-pitched ringing note that resembles a psychedelic bell. Metheny often seems to be playing two guitars simultaneously rather than just one.
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