American Garage is the second studio album by the Pat Metheny Group, recorded in June 1979 and released on ECM in November 1979. The quartet features rhythm section Lyle Mays, Mark Egan and Dan Gottlieb.[5]

American Garage
Studio album by
ReleasedNovember 1979
RecordedJune 1979
StudioLong View Farm,
North Brookfield, MA
GenreJazz fusion
Length35:21
LabelECM
ECM 1155 ST
ProducerPat Metheny
Pat Metheny chronology
New Chautauqua
(1979)
American Garage
(1979)
80/81
(1980)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music[3]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings[4]
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide[2]

Background

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The album represented the most collaborative writing session between Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays up to that point in the band's history. According to Metheny, this yielded mixed results. He has said that the album's second track, "Airstream," is a favorite from this period. But both he and Mays have expressed less praise for the fifth and final track, "The Epic", which Metheny has claimed, "is all over the map."[6]

Track listing

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All tracks are written by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays

Side I
No.TitleLength
1."(Cross the) Heartland"6:55
2."Airstream"6:20
3."The Search"4:54
Side II
No.TitleLength
4."American Garage"4:13
5."The Epic"12:59

Personnel

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Pat Metheny Group

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Technical personnel

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  • Pat Metheny – producer
  • Manfred Eicher – executive producer
  • Kent Nebergall – recording engineer, mixing engineer
  • Jesse Henderson – assistant engineer
  • Bill Kipper – mastering engineer
  • mastered at Masterdisk, NYC, USA
  • Basil Pao – design
  • Joel Meyerowitz – cover photography
  • Rob Van Petten – photography

Charts

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Year Chart Position
1980 Billboard Jazz Albums 1
1980 Billboard Pop Albums 53

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Ginell, Richard S. (2011). "American Garage - Pat Metheny Group | AllMusic". allmusic.com. Retrieved 19 July 2011.
  2. ^ Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 139. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
  3. ^ Larkin, Colin (2007). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0195313734.
  4. ^ Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 993. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
  5. ^ "American Garage". ECM.
  6. ^ Cooke, Mervyn (2017). Pat Metheny: The ECM Years, 1975–1984. Oxford University Press. pp. 137–140.