As we move a day closer to celebrating the birth of America, the music playlist continues to celebrate as well.

There are plenty of Americans who have made great jazz-fusion musicians, and it’s pretty hard to feature just one based on citizenship.  The next step for me in narrowing down the choices is to look at album titles.

Cover of "American Garage"
Cover of Pat Metheny Group’s album “American Garage”

That brings me to the Pat Metheny Group.  I’ve featured them here before with the album “Offramp,” but I’ll feature them again today with the album “American Garage.”

From the cover photo of the Airstream trailers to the photo on the back of the group looking like your typical garage band (and being in actuality anything but your typical garage band) down to the title of the first song, “(Cross The) Heartland” — and the feel of that first song, like you’re driving down a highway with nothing but open sky and freedom in front of you — well, that’s America.

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