Pat Metheny: From This Place – A brave step forward from a jazz great

In a personal note issued with the publicity for From This Place, guitarist Pat Metheny talks about Miles Davis's approach to studio recording, where new compositions would be presented to the band members in the studio with no prior rehearsal, so that the recordings would capture something fresh and unforeseen in the performances.

But for Metheny, the studio has always been another instrument, another actor in the drama, and during the recording of From This Place, the 65-year-old guitarist began to imagine another layer, of orchestration and colour, that could be added later.

The results are a sprawling cinematic epic of an album, with impeccable performances from Metheny, pianist Gwilym Simcock, bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Antonio Sanchez overlaid with lush orchestral arrangements from a top flight LA studio orchestra that, unusually, are informed by the original improvisations of the band. It's the sound of a great musician still searching for his own truth, for an accommodation between the spontaneity of live performance and the potential of the recording process to polish and enhance. If it is not always entirely successful, it's another brave step forward from one of jazz's most respected innovators, and will be hungrily devoured by Metheny fans.

And as usual, when the guitar solos start, it is the exultant sound of one of the greatest ever players of that instrument, who, over a career now spanning nearly 50 years, has learned how to turn strings and wood and frets into pure joy.