Nowhere is this better expressed than in Wichita's 20-minute title track. Evolving from ambient sound into a gently throbbing pulse, the track's beautiful opening phrase only lasts a minute before setting off into dark wilderness. Over the extended, filmic landscape, Vasconcelos' voice & percussion and Mays' synth explorations traverse the frontiers of ambient jazz in a journey that remains one of the crown jewels in the ECM catalogue.
At the outset of the album's second half, Metheny and Mays remain in the rural outdoors for the joyful Ozark, before taking the tempo and mood down a notch for a sombre tribute to Bill Evans' passing (which occurred during recording). Next up is It's For You, another outing for Mays' synths and Vasconcelos, as Metheny creates shimmering rainclouds of acoustic guitar before taking a solo at the halfway point. The sweetly atmospheric Estupenda Graça closes the album.
A quick word about the album cover, said to be both a reference to the track It's For You and to Glen Campbell's Wichita Lineman; it might come in for some stick from many fans, but I kind of like it. And it does provide a link to another of my favourite record labels, Erased Tapes: two years after the recording sessions for Wichita, the cover photographer Klaus Frahm would become father to a son named Nils.
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