Marc Johnson had already made two Bass Desires albums on the ECM label when he was signed by Verve. On the earlier albums Bill Frisell was paired with John Scofield, while on The Sound of Summer Running he is paired with Pat Metheny. All three guitarists often used to assemble in the living room of Jim Hall’s apartment in Greenwich Village (Hall was revered by all three) to exchange ideas, socialise and jam, and these two albums built on those associations. There is an easy rapport built of mutual respect – this was a group built on empathy and understanding where no-one tries to outdo the other. On this album there’s seven originals by Johnson, two by Frisell and one by Metheny. They successfully convey a mood of summery optimism, with Metheny alternating between electric and acoustic guitars and his 42 string Pikasso that alters the tonal density of the ensemble to pleasing effect.

If the album has an overall mood, it’s that of Americana in its most positive Aaron Copeland-ish sense of the word. Metheny comes from Missouri, Frisell from Denver, Colorado, and neither sought to conceal their musical origins in their playing, with Johnson’s well crafted originals drawing richly on this aspect of their musical personalities.

Yet despite the palpable joy at music making these musicians exude here, there is depth – how couldn’t there be with two master guitarists of quite different stylistic approaches uniting in common cause, with exemplary accompaniment from a former Bill Evans bassist and Joey Baron at his most sympathetic? It’s an album that can be returned to again and again, either as engaging background music or absorbing foreground music. In short, this is one of those rare albums it is impossible to dislike.