Pat Metheny: Secret Story

I’m a big Pat Metheny fan, and have all of his Group recordings along with a handful of his solo projects. Secret Story, though, taps into a rare emotional element that is both haunting and beautiful. (Word has it that it tells the story of a difficult love affair Metheny was involved in.) The Cambodian chanting at the beginning is only a hint of how different this recording would be; this is also the only Metheny album with strings. Metheny himself noted that while this was probably his most intimate album, it was also his most ambitious and had as many as 80 musicians accompanying him on some of the tracks. In 2007, it was released in a remastered edition with a second bonus disc containing a handful of tracks that were recorded at the same sessions, but only recently finished for this new edition.