Kin (←→)

"As he nears 60, Pat Metheny seems ever-hungrier to pack even more musical ideas and technical innovations into each crowded project - interrupted only by last year's inspired and affectingly direct interpretations of John Zorn's Songbooks. With Kin (←→), a set of new originals for his talented Unity Group featuring reeds star Chris Potter, now bolstered by the awesome multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Giulio Carmassi, Metheny sounds pulled between hurling in everything he knows and revisiting the songwriting lyricism and cinematic openness that made him one of jazz's most popular stars from the 1970s to the 90s. The later numbers here - including the title track's racing groove and soulfully mournful sax theme, the beautiful ballad Born, the R&B-inflected anthem We Go On and the folk melody and band dialogue on Kqu - bring the classic Pat Metheny Group's leisurely vitality into the 21st century." (The Guardian, February 2014)