Pat Metheny's credibility with the jazz community went way up with the release of this package, a superb two-CD collaboration with a quartet of outstanding jazz musicians that dared to be uncompromising at a time when most artists would have merely continued pursuing their electric commercial successes. From the disbandedKeith JarrettAmerican quartet came bassistCharlie Hadenand tenorDewey Redman-- who alternates with and occasionally plays alongside tenorMichael Brecker-- andJack DeJohnetteprovides more combustible drumming than Metheny had ever experienced on record before. Yet Metheny's off-kilter wandering on solo electric guitar is a comfortable fit for the post-bop rhythmic crosscurrents of this music. Indeed,Hadenand Metheny are in total sympathy, perhaps celebrating their mutual Missouri roots, and Metheny's difficult Pretty Scattered -- which he mockingly described as Guitar Revenge! -- nearly manages to stump evenRedmanandBrecker. The first of the Two Folk Songs is a great example of the Metheny folk-jazz fusion, with furious strummed guitar underpinningBrecker'smelodic line and excursions on the outside andDeJohnette'sspectacular drums. Another remarkable track is Open, a group improvisation that findsDeJohnetteshaping the track's direction with a pushing solo and Metheny and the saxes emerging at the end. The two original LPs were organized so that the more distinctive Metheny fusions were on sides one and four and the overt jazz tracks occupied sides two and three.