Bright Size Life (1976)

A 21-year-old Pat Metheny introduced a new guitar vocabulary steeped in Midwestern Americana and ringing open strings. In close interplay with Jaco Pastorius's singing fretless bass and Bob Moses's crisp cymbals, he swaps bebop clichés for sweeping, pastoral melodies; the title track is the one to start with, a tune you can hum after one play.