A Map of the World

by William RuhlmannThough it is billed as a Pat Metheny album, A Map of the World also contains the small-print cover statement "music from and inspired by the motion picture," and indeed, it is the soundtrack to a film called A Map of the World. Metheny gets the nod because he performs on the album as well as having composed the music, and because in addition to featuring all the music from the film, it contains, by his count, "an additional 25 minutes or so of various expansions, improvisations, and treatments based on either the actual thematic materials, or the implied sonic and harmonic language that was generated by the score." Though it contains 28 music cues, some of them lasting less than a minute, it can be enjoyed as an album of instrumental acoustic guitar music with orchestral accompaniment. Except, perhaps, for one-minute-and-39 seconds of "Sunday," which suddenly introduces a trip-hop beat, this is a disc that would fit right in on Windham Hill Records alongside anything by Will Ackerman. Fans of Metheny's fusion jazz efforts might want to skip it, but A Map of the World is an excellent new age album.