This is one of the most important works of the much admired Pat Metheny, a musician of reference in jazz today and a pioneer in the introduction of electronics in this musical style. Metheny is also the inventor of several guitar models. For example, it is very common to see him use one with several sets of crossed strings of tremendous appearance, called Picasso.
https://www.deviantart.com/pawjanka/art/PAT-METHENY-POSTER-539140106
The album in question, winner of the 1984 Grammy for best fusion music recording, is a live double disc with pieces collected from performances in Dallas, Hartford, Philadelphia and Sacramento. I am not a great jazz connoisseur, although it is clear that the songs, despite being the product of genuine improvisation of the genre, maintain a similar tone, flirting with the warm rhythms of Latin America. I notice above all a pleasant air of bossa nova, and sometimes samba. As variety is the spice of life, Travels includes both very powerful tracks and others that are more discreet, with Pat's guitar almost whispering in the latter. Are You Going with Me, which opens the album, is an example of jazz for all audiences, while others like The Fields, the Sky are more playful. The sobriety is found in themes such as the homonymous Travels, or in Farmer's Truth, which is almost a little hymn. A good number of tracks on the CD consist simply of quite ambient themes, full of interesting sound effects. The sublime piece Goin' Ahead is not only the longest on the album, but it contains so many musical references that it is practically indefinable.
As usual in the great jazz albums, the main musician is surrounded by label collaborators. In this case, Metheny has Lyle Mays, who is in charge of almost everything that has keys (his piano solos are very good, scattered in several tracks) and is co-author of half the album; Steve Rodby, on bass; Dan Gottlieb, great on drums; and Nana Vasconcelos, vocalist and percussionist of Brazilian origin who surely has had an unbalancing weight in the spirit of the whole album.
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And what can we say about Pat Metheny's guitar? Well, if we don't have to recognize it as a throwaway guitar, it doesn't even seem that way because it sounds so clean, completely devoid of the whining "throatiness" of conventional guitars. Metheny's contains no noises that denote craftsmanship, because the real craftsmanship is here in the player's fingers -controlled by his imagination-, which do not resort to the always effective and stark classical guitar to allude to the superficially spiritual. Without conventional seasoning everything is more authentic. I would quietly recommend Travels to anyone who is curious to get started in jazz, as it is a luminous and accessible proposal, perfect both for concentrated tasting and to set the mood of life itself.