I don’t think I knew it at the time, but this was the last CD I ever shopped for. Not the last CD I ever bought, or will buy — when some of my hardcore favorite artists like Steely Dan or Dylan or someone puts out a new CD I’ll still go into a store and buy it — but this is the last one I ever said “I want this” and wandered around the East Village looking for it in used sections at shops. (I did well — $5.99!) That was about 2 and a half years ago. Now it is all about the Internet and, more specifically, MP3 downloads onto the Pod. Such is life.
Anyway, played this one about 4 times yesterday and Ann & I were domestic and cooked dinner, read the paper, played with the cat, wasted time. It’s fantastic and it truly is a duet — it isn’t Haden backing up Metheny. Both Metheny and Haden have a huge discography and a lot of it sounds like junk to my ears, but they really are both on the money with this disc and hit it out of the park. The photographs inside the disc are nice, too. You don’t get that with downloads.