First Circle is the last album the Pat Metheny Group made for ECM, and the one on which the band changed shape. Drummer Paul Wertico replaced Danny Gottlieb, and the Argentine singer, guitarist and percussionist Pedro Aznar joined, his mostly wordless voice becoming one more instrument in the ensemble. The record reflects a growing interest in South American rhythm, and it won the 1985 Grammy for Best Jazz Fusion Performance.
The album was recorded in February 1984 at Power Station in New York, produced by Pat Metheny himself with Jan Erik Kongshaug as engineer. Metheny plays acoustic and electric guitars, Synclavier guitar and guitar synthesizer, as well as sitar and slide on Yolanda, You Learn. Lyle Mays, co-writer of most of the pieces, plays piano, synthesizers and organ, and even trumpet on the brief marching-band opener Forward March. Steve Rodby plays acoustic and electric bass, and Aznar adds percussion and bells across the record.
The nine-minute title track sets Metheny's steel-string acoustic guitar against Aznar's nylon-string guitar and voice, with Mays's piano driving it forward. If I Could, which follows, is a slow ballad for acoustic guitar over Mays's Oberheim synthesizer and Wertico's brushes. In Más Allá (Beyond) Aznar sings his own lyrics to Metheny's melody, a rare case of words in the group's music, used here with restraint.
On ECM Reviews, Tyran Grillo called If I Could "one of the most utterly beautiful statements Metheny has ever recorded". He found the opening march hokey but everything after it solid. He expected the title track to be most listeners' favourite. He also heard Tell It All and End Of The Game as a look back to the earlier Offramp, above all in the soaring synth guitar lead of the latter. For him it is Mays who gives the project its distinguishing colours, and Aznar's singing in Más Allá another highlight. The Grammy confirmed the group's standing at the time, following a win in the same category for the live album Travels the year before.
This CD is the 2008 edition in ECM's Touchstones series, which brings key albums from the catalogue back into print. First Circle was first released in 1984 as ECM 1278.
