Welcome to the first in a series of music reviews that will focus on my favorite jazz, pop and world-music artists. In a nutshell, my goal is to turn you on to a variety of eclectic music. Some featured artists will be newcomers to the music scene; others might have cult followings or even lengthy careers.

The common denominator is that each will be, in my opinion, an example of talent deserving wider recognition. 

But first, allow me to begin this inaugural column with a short rant. There is no shortage of terrific new music out there-my CD and MP3 collections are overflowing. But since I'm a musician myself, I'm probably more tenacious about the search for inspiring music than others. My passionate attitude definitely comes in handy, because all too often the best music today flies below the radar of what we have always referred to as "the music industry." 

In the '50s and '60s, the industry consisted of competing companies run by either executives who truly loved music or those rare musicians who were born with a business gene. Sadly, those days are long gone. Over the last two decades, those major record labels have merged and purged themselves of artists who couldn't guarantee sales of at least 5 million copies of their CDs-which was almost every single artist except those targeted at teenage girls. The top executives no longer have backgrounds in the arts; they are financially focused guys who come from GE and other corporations where shareholder dividends trump quality every time. Their impact on the music itself has been stifling. With their finger-in-the-wind "hit single" mentality, companies like Sony now release only what will sell the largest volume with the least effort. And really, it's hard to blame them. An entertainment attorney once told me that the average promotional budget for a CD by a new artist is $300,000 to $500,000. That's a pretty big 
risk unless you've got the next Britney Spears on your hands. 

The problem with that system is that, if you've read this far, I'm willing to bet you couldn't care less about the next Britney Spears (or even the current one). If I may flatter you for a moment, I believe that people who fall in love with the inconvenient charms of San Miguel de Allende are instinctively more sophisticated and open to creativity. We see art and beauty and it moves us, regardless of whether the artist is famous or slickly packaged. The further we get from being teenagers furtively downloading the new hit single by some airbrushed flavor-of-the-month pop act, the less the Sonys of the world care about us.

So what's the good news, you ask? Thanks in part to the internet-where talented, nonmainstream artists can offer their new CDs for little more than the cost of registering a URL-there is a new "independent" music industry that has evolved to service those of us with more eclectic tastes. Most independent artists have never known anything else: The punkish singer/songwriter Ani DiFranco sells over a million CDs a year from her website without the aid of a single image consultant. The allure of having such control over their own art has even attracted major acts like Prince and Bruce Springsteen to stop serving their corporate masters and set up shop on their own terms. They are free to record and release only the music that moves them, regardless of contractual obligations, trends or fads. It is still a risky proposition. I don't care if your last album won a Grammy, if your new one can't find an audience, the ego takes a giant hit. But at least if they fail, they fail doing the music they believe in.

Which brings us to our first music review! One of my favorite living musicians is Pat Metheny, who has managed to release such a dramatically diverse selection of music since the late '70s that it could have come from 10 different composers. He has contributed smooth Brazilian jazz, classically inspired film scores, avant-garde collaborations with Ornette Coleman, hard bop with Chick Corea and more. But I want to focus on Metheny's most recent album, The Way Up, because I consider it to be his most ambitious and rewarding work.

In stark contrast to a typical jazz album, The Way Up is big-picture music-a 68-minute, through-composed jazz piece divided into four movements. 

"Through-composed" merely means that even though there may be improvised sections, the composer can't fall back and simply reprise a catchy main theme at the end and call it a day. Every single measure contains new musical ideas, and what wonderful ideas they are. On this album, Metheny guides his eight-musician orchestra through rich passages that use sound like color-a splash of mellow guitar here, a stroke of effects-laden muted trumpet there, and beneath it all a percolating carpet of percussion instruments from around the world (led by Mexico City's Antonio Sánchez). One of Metheny's strengths is his ability to write blissfully catchy melodies that serve as vehicles for his virtuosic jazz guitar solos, but on The Way Up he avoids anything so simple. I find a lot of beautiful themes weaving in and out of this album, but they are obviously not meant to stand alone in the spotlight, any more than a salsa verde is meant to overshadow the enchilada.

The first time I listened to the album I found it pretty challenging. It was so unlike anything else I've heard that it threw me off. The rhythms shift constantly, making it hard to tap your foot with confidence. Instruments and soaring wordless vocals come and go after they make their statement, never to return. There is definitely some harmonic dissonance, though on repeated listening it falls into place and serves a more melodic purpose. It definitely isn't background music for your next dinner party, but if you're interested in hearing something beautiful, bold and innovative from one of the world's greatest jazz ensembles, Pat Metheny's The Way Up is a great choice.

Doug Robinson is a composer and multi-instrumentalist who performs with the jazz/funk group Mo' Ritmo here in San Miguel.