Pat Metheny Fans, Great Suggestions Please ??


Hello,

I have Secret Story, We Live Here and Imaginary Day.

I know his styles vary from album to album, but I'm looking for some stuff that sounds great cranked-up or low-level, beautiful, involving and long-term (asking a lot)

The 30-60 second samples give a fraction of say, what a 14 minute song has, so it's kinda difficult to get a handle on the changing improvs.

I did like what I "managed" to hear from Pat Metheny Group with Mays, Egan and Gottlieb "San Lorenzo"
rx8man
Offramp is my favorite. Bought it in 1984 and have listened to it steadily ever since. I haven't really liked a lot of his other stuff. I bought several more of his albums and offshoot group efforts hoping to get a duplicate of Offramp. No luck at least for me. The other stuff was very well recorded but I just didn't care for the songs. But Offramp is in my top 20 or 30 albums of all time.
I agree "Offramp" is excellent. I owned the LP, and recently bought the CD which does not measure up to the LP, IMO.

I saw "Offramp" at a local vinyl store and was tempted to buy it, but I dislike doubling up music on different formats.
I see the ECMs are being released in Japan on SHM CD sometime in September. Could be interesting.

I would appreciate if anybody can comment on the quality of an SHM CD vs. ECMs especially on "Offramp". I have the "Offramp" ECM CD and find the sound of percussion to be rather fake and not natural on my favourite track "Au Lait". I agree that "Offramp" is excellent. It is one of my favourite album from Pat Metheny alongside "Secret Story".

My experience with the SHM CDs so far is, if the CD sounds excellent in the first place the SHM is frosting on the cake. If the CD doesn't sound excellent then the SHM won't save it and isn't worth the extra money. Just my 2 cents worth.