He looks from the cover, bucktoothed and smiley, hair awry and flares unfeasibly fanned. It’s hard to imagine this is Metheny, the living legend, the jazz grand statesman. Of course, in 1977, he was already a devastatingly impressive musician, but Watercolors was only his second release, the breakthrough Offramp yet to come and the synth guitar still a techno dream. But the components are all there, not least Lyle Mays, Peter Taylor to Metheny’s Cloughie. It’s refreshing to hear Mays on piano before synths took a hold. Those choirs of different-voiced guitars are also there, notably on ‘Oasis’, the debt to Jim Hall evident, especially on the more ‘straightahead’ group pieces like the title-track. And there’s a slice of George Benson on ‘River Quay’. And, of course, there’s his love of a feel good, ‘let’s all be chums’ melody, making him the James Taylor of the guitar, best expressed by ‘Lakes’. A typically unfussy ECM reissue: no extras: but that’s what you get from Metheny of the time: lyrically fresh and unburdened.