**1/2 Pat Metheny Group

QUARTET

(Geffen)

This isn't the big-production Brazilian jazz pop of some Group albums. And though the band stick as closely to an acoustic sound as they dare, it's not straight-ahead, either. The album is organized like a suite, a musical travelogue with attractive experimental flourishes ("Dismantling Utopia"). The associations can shift constantly in your head: jazz-guitar funk à la Grant Green, the fractured piano jazz of Paul Bley, Burt Bacharach pop, Steely Dan, acid-damaged samba. The group-composed "Montevideo" moves from folklike tinny atonal percussion to "Breezin' " jazz pop with samba drums. Tempos are often slow or nonexistent; there's Bill Evans-like lyricism and, occasionally, when he's taking off on his most breathtaking melodic flights, Metheny's godawful, cheesy synth guitar ("Language of Time"). You can blame pianist Lyle Mays for those too-sweet piano progressions, but then how do you explain his knotty, uncompromising "Double Blind"? And Steve Rodby's acoustic bass can conjure the expressive warmth of Charlie Haden. Give these guys credit; sweet or sour, false moves or unquestionably right, they're making exactly the music they want to hear.

-- Jon Garelick