Classic Or Dud: Pat Metheny

i will confess to being slightly influenced by him during my short-lived career as a failed jazz guitar prodigy. i really liked the 'i can see your house from here' disc he did with john scofield (also a wanker).

ultimately i'd really like to see what would happen if we got pat methany and thurston moore to do a Duets album ...

If you've heard Zero Tolerance For Silence, you'd fear that it would kind of suck.

I don't know. Yes, he's got some really cheesy stuff that my dentist would probably object to. Yes, he has big, funny hair. And yes, he wears that same striped shirt in every photo of him ever taken.

But he's also done a number of really interesting things, like a lot of the guitar synth stuff on Offramp and his straight ahead records with Ornette's group. Or his record with Ornette, for that matter.

Though I understand that the powerful oranges and yellows of cheese can be a bit blinding to all that.

Metheny gets beat up here b/c of the hair and the fact that his most syrupy stuff sells so well. But the best of his ECM stuff is among the label's finest and his sense of melody is peerless.

Indeed, the guy has made a handful of GREAT records -- his early-80s ECM stuff is chock full of wonderful moments, many electronic: the opening and Ornette-on-guitar-synth title tracks of Offramp, the just reissued Song X on which he duets with Ornette on guitar synth. And the weirdest, most beautific one, As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls, which sits somewhere between post-Evans jazz, New Age and a sort of bossa-nova Vangelis -- it's excellent.

Seconded that As Falls Wichita is strange, and frequently awesome.

I've never listened to much of his noise work but it always seems to be a tantrum - "Hey, I can do this shit too!" Granted the guy has serious chops, and he could probably do some interesting work in free improv, but he's held back by the context. I saw him live once on the Secret Story, and halfway through the show he sat down for some solo acoustic guitar. Everyone was like, "Ah, this'll be pretty." He lifted his hand, got ready to play, and then just SLAMMED out some random chords for about a minute or two, pissing off everybody in the theater, until he segued to something from the album. It didn't "work" but it was a good joke.

(Or at least they used Windham Hill.)

2xpost

STR is OTM, as it were, with Bright Sized Life -- Metheny's guitar tone is creamy as hell, but there's some edge there. Also, it's not all terrific but for texturally pleasing Metheny w/o much in the way of "jazz", New Chatauqua has some really purdy stuff. Same goes for Watercolors, which features a boatload of Eberhard Weber in all his fretless bass beauty...

Ha. That's the only Metheny I know, so I came into this thread thinking "Classic, duh." I've been warned off of other albums, and never really pursued him, but AFWSFWF is genius. I had no idea until recently that the rest of his stuff was crap...

You might wanna check out Offramp as well. The opening track is this very spacious padded out bossa-nova until right near the end, where Metheny explodes into this atonal guitar synth mess. It's pretty fantastic and a great lead into "Are You Going With Me" which is one of his great epics from the period...

I've just got the reissue of American Garage, which is pretty cheesy, but WONDERFUL! It's all roadtrips as a child for me, so there's that nostalgia, but also the delightful comfort of knowing the melodies as they build. The album is all varying shades of build-up and climax, in a fairly unabashed sense, and there's a lot of joy to be found in such craft, for me.

CLASSIC.

I am totally a fan right now! this guy is a freak! I only own Zero Tolerance cuz I'm a SY fan, but ok, right, I see thee error etc etc

I currently have "Question and Answer", "Bright Sized Life", "Trio 99-00", and the expanded "Song X" in my Amazon.com Wish List right now...

he is totally the real deal. i will make amend for any Metheny hate I ever spouted. very smart guy, very great player. organizes good bands and gets the job done.. I'm suddenly a fan! i love when that happens

Despite myself I put on (Still Life) Talking when I got off the graveyard shift the other day.

I have a bunch of his records that I'm hanging onto in hopes that one day I'll learn to appreciate him. Liked "Song X" right away though.

The actual Pat Metheny Group is full of cheese, but whenever he gets into a combo situation with his peers (or elders) he reminds me how good he is. Search Bright Size Life, all his trio records ala Dave Holland/Roy Haynes and Billy Higgins/Charlie Haden(?), and Gary Burton's 'Like Minds' with Chick Corea, Dave Holland, and Roy Haynes that is my personal favorite Metheny appearance.

-- Jordan (Jordan), Wednesday, January 22, 2003 5:27 PM (4 years ago)
otm. He is OK on the Abbey Lincoln record he plays on with these kinds of guys.

Revive!

Forget Metheny's "noise" stuff. I was listening to Travels the other day -- and again, what a great period that was for him, where the group exists in this lazy, floating, electro-nova plane. It opens with "Are You Going With Me?" where Mays does some wonderful textural stuff, before Metheny comes in on his guitar synth and absolutely goes BERSERK to orgiastic, Coltrane-esque proportions for, like, five heart-stopping minutes.

I had on Travels when my Dad called the other day. The BERSERK portion came on and my Dad goes "What the heck are you listening to?"

"One of those Metheny records you gave me."

"THAT'S not my Metheny!"

oh dad.

God Wichita falls is good

"American Garage" is a great album. More melodic than most "fusion", which is great!

folk song = dud

fucking MADNESS WTF

Anyone who lived in Florida during the xmas season no doubt has a nostalgia for Last Train Home

I'm so glad Metheny was last talked about only a few months ago. I'm jamming out to the studio version of "Last Train Home" right now, and I'm imagining some soft Ibizan beats underneath it. Has anyone ever done a solid remix of Metheny?

surely classic for the kenny g rant alone

i know nothing of this kenny g rant but must track down

xp i know terje did a "re-edit" of some metheny track but it was pretty awful, if i recall. there's always "little fluffy clouds" if you're jonesin', i guess

i totally love "bright size life"; one or two tracks totally preempts chicago-style post rock but it's the straight-jazzier stuff that i like the best.. i have picked up a few other lps with his name on it for under $3 and they're all really good. ecm ftw!

Kenny G is not a musician I really had much of an opinion about at all until recently. There was not much about the way he played that interested me one way or the other either live or on records.

I first heard him a number of years ago playing as a sideman with Jeff Lorber when they opened a concert for my band. My impression was that he was someone who had spent a fair amount of time listening to the more pop oriented sax players of that time, like Grover Washington or David Sanborn, but was not really an advanced player, even in that style. He had major rhythmic problems and his harmonic and melodic vocabulary was extremely limited, mostly to pentatonic based and blues-lick derived patterns, and he basically exhibited only a rudimentary understanding of how to function as a professional soloist in an ensemble - Lorber was basically playing him off the bandstand in terms of actual music.

But he did show a knack for connecting to the basest impulses of the large crowd by deploying his two or three most effective licks (holding long notes and playing fast runs - never mind that there were lots of harmonic clams in them) at the key moments to elicit a powerful crowd reaction (over and over again). The other main thing I noticed was that he also, as he does to this day, played horribly out of tune - consistently sharp.

Of course, I am aware of what he has played since, the success it has had, and the controversy that has surrounded him among musicians and serious listeners. This controversy seems to be largely fueled by the fact that he sells an enormous amount of records while not being anywhere near a really great player in relation to the standards that have been set on his instrument over the past sixty or seventy years. And honestly, there is no small amount of envy involved from musicians who see one of their fellow players doing so well financially, especially when so many of them who are far superior as improvisors and musicians in general have trouble just making a living. There must be hundreds, if not thousands of sax players around the world who are simply better improvising musicians than Kenny G on his chosen instruments. It would really surprise me if even he disagreed with that statement.

Having said that, it has gotten me to thinking lately why so many jazz musicians (myself included, given the right "bait" of a question, as I will explain later) and audiences have gone so far as to say that what he is playing is not even jazz at all. Stepping back for a minute, if we examine the way he plays, especially if one can remove the actual improvising from the often mundane background environment that it is delivered in, we see that his saxophone style is in fact clearly in the tradition of the kind of playing that most reasonably objective listeners WOULD normally quantify as being jazz. It's just that as jazz or even as music in a general sense, with these standards in mind, it is simply not up to the level of playing that we historically associate with professional improvising musicians. So, lately I have been advocating that we go ahead and just include it under the word jazz - since pretty much of the rest of the world OUTSIDE of the jazz community does anyway - and let the chips fall where they may.

And after all, why he should be judged by any other standard, why he should be exempt from that that all other serious musicians on his instrument are judged by if they attempt to use their abilities in an improvisational context playing with a rhythm section as he does? He SHOULD be compared to John Coltrane or Wayne Shorter, for instance, on his abilities (or lack thereof) to play the soprano saxophone and his success (or lack thereof) at finding a way to deploy that instrument in an ensemble in order to accurately gauge his abilities and put them in the context of his instrument's legacy and potential.

As a composer of even eighth note based music, he SHOULD be compared to Herbie Hancock, Horace Silver or even Grover Washington. Suffice it to say, on all above counts, at this point in his development, he wouldn't fare well.

But, like I said at the top, this relatively benign view was all "until recently".

Not long ago, Kenny G put out a recording where he overdubbed himself on top of a 30+ year old Louis Armstrong record, the track "What a Wonderful World". With this single move, Kenny G became one of the few people on earth I can say that I really can't use at all - as a man, for his incredible arrogance to even consider such a thing, and as a musician, for presuming to share the stage with the single most important figure in our music.

This type of musical necrophilia - the technique of overdubbing on the preexisting tracks of already dead performers - was weird when Natalie Cole did it with her dad on "Unforgettable" a few years ago, but it was her dad. When Tony Bennett did it with Billie Holiday it was bizarre, but we are talking about two of the greatest singers of the 20th century who were on roughly the same level of artistic accomplishment. When Larry Coryell presumed to overdub himself on top of a Wes Montgomery track, I lost a lot of the respect that I ever had for him - and I have to seriously question the fact that I did have respect for someone who could turn out to have such unbelievably bad taste and be that disrespectful to one of my personal heroes.

But when Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all over one of the great Louis's tracks (even one of his lesser ones), he did something that I would not have imagined possible. He, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, shit all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years developing their own music inspired by the standards of grace that Louis Armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician. By disrespecting Louis, his legacy and by default, everyone who has ever tried to do something positive with improvised music and what it can be, Kenny G has created a new low point in modern culture - something that we all should be totally embarrassed about - and afraid of. We ignore this, "let it slide", at our own peril.

His callous disregard for the larger issues of what this crass gesture implies is exacerbated by the fact that the only reason he possibly have for doing something this inherently wrong (on both human and musical terms) was for the record sales and the money it would bring.

Since that record came out - in protest, as insignificant as it may be, I encourage everyone to boycott Kenny G recordings, concerts and anything he is associated with. If asked about Kenny G, I will diss him and his music with the same passion that is in evidence in this little essay.

Normally, I feel that musicians all have a hard enough time, regardless of their level, just trying to play good and don't really benefit from public criticism, particularly from their fellow players. but, this is different.

There ARE some things that are sacred - and amongst any musician that has ever attempted to address jazz at even the most basic of levels, Louis Armstrong and his music is hallowed ground. To ignore this trespass is to agree that NOTHING any musician has attempted to do with their life in music has any intrinsic value - and I refuse to do that. (I am also amazed that there HASN'T already been an outcry against this among music critics - where ARE they on this?????!?!?!?!, magazines, etc.). Everything I said here is exactly the same as what I would say to Gorelick if I ever saw him in person. and if I ever DO see him anywhere, at any function - he WILL get a piece of my mind and (maybe a guitar wrapped around his head.)

NOTE: this post is partially in response to the comments that people have made regarding a short video interview excerpt with me that was posted on the internet taken from a tv show for young people (kind of like MTV)in poland where i was asked to address 8 to 11 year old kids on terms that they could understand about jazz. while enthusiastically describing the virtues of this great area of music, i was encouraging the kids to find and listen to some of the greats in the music and not to get confused by the sometimes overwhelming volume of music that falls under the jazz umbrella. i went on to say that i think that for instance, kenny g plays the dumbest music on the planet – something that all 8 to 11 year kids on the planet already intrinsically know, as anyone who has ever spent any time around kids that age could confirm - so it gave us some common ground for the rest of the discussion. (ADDENDUM: the only thing wrong with the statement that i made was that i did not include the rest of the known universe.) the fact that this clip was released so far out of the context that it was delivered in is a drag, but it is now done. (its unauthorized release out of context like that is symptomatic of the new electronically interconnected culture that we now live in - where pretty much anything anyone anywhere has ever said or done has the potential to become common public property at any time.) i was surprised by the polish people putting this clip up so far away from the use that it was intended -really just for the attention - with no explanation of the show it was made for - they (the polish people in general) used to be so hip and would have been unlikely candidates to do something like that before, but i guess everything is changing there like it is everywhere else. the only other thing that surprised me in the aftermath of the release of this little interview is that ANYONE would be even a little bit surprised that i would say such a thing, given the reality of mr. gs music. this makes me want to go practice about 10 times harder, because that suggests to me that i am not getting my own musical message across clearly enough - which to me, in every single way and intention is diametrically opposed to what Kenny G seems to be after.

also classic for this:

http://www.jazz.com/assets/2008/6/5/pikasso1.jpg

i have a few problems with his logic there but he is mostly right on.. yeah g always did sound slightly out of tune to me! maybe that's part of the annoyance factor.

a music professor at university of washington told me that he and everyone were so impressed by kenny g when he was studying there.. and then he left and made shitty records and they were all "wha happened".. don't know if that was before or after this amazing album cover

http://whatimg.com/images/tw4p0sej9202x5etydkd.jpeg

i could have sworn i said more on this thread

<3 wichita falls

Holy shit, why did I never listen to Offramp before?

this thread inspired me to once again dig around on allmusic & youtube trying to find the song of his I loved as a kid. turns out it was Phase Dance from the self-titled pat metheny group album. i listened to some clips from Wichita and clearly need to grab that one.

Poor Kenny G. Kenny G's career started with a job as a sideman for Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra in 1973 while 17 and still in high school. I am sorry but that is cool!

Yeah, "Phase Dance" is cool. I need to explore more of the 70s and 80s Metheny.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33kp7YTdQi0

I have probably said this before, probably on this thread even, but I knew a drummer in high school who used to get me to say "As Falls Wichita So Falls Wichita Falls" repeatedly, because he couldn't manage to get the whole title out and it cracked him up to hear it. He was liking a walking drummer joke. He once told me I should take up smoking because it was a good habit.

I picked up his awesome solo baritone acoustic disc a couple of months ago while out of town and I have no idea where I put it

yes I know I could go steal it & feel ok about because I already bought it but I'm an object-fetishist, leave me alone with my books you buncha kids

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlalQ2LEhWI

kinda clueless when it comes to this dude. recommendations on where to start? early stuff?

(there's a funny thing in that Jazz Ear book from a few years back where Metheny says something like "b-minor, the saddest of all keys." and all the metheny heads started discussing this comment seriously, but of course, pat is paraphrasing from spinal tap, haha.)

xp Bright Sized Life seems like a good entry point.
Has his collab with Steve Reich not been mentionned? Pretty amazing stuff

Do you mean Electric Counterpoint?

I don't think you can go wrong with pretty much any of the records Pat Metheny did for ECM. I think when he got obsessed with Brazilian music and started using tons of strings on some of the later records on Geffen, usually on Pat Metheny Group albums, I didn't like it as much. That said, if you find a record where he is in a group with a bunch of other jazz ringers with big reps, he always holds his own.

xp - yeah sorry that's the one

Cool, it's great. I just wondered if they'd done something new together. I always thought about EC as just Metheny performing Reich's composition tbh -- and it is -- but his contribution on the original recording is pretty and substantial, considering he had to record and layer every one of those 13 parts. Have you listened to the other recordings of the piece? I'd like to check out Tannenbaum's.

Ugh, "is pretty substantial"! I suppose it is pretty and substantial too though.

OMG Wichita Falls!

sick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppA9p6Rboqw

offramp is the shit!

Today Nonesuch announced a new tour coming up for the Unity Band. A good thing, it's good to see Pat interacting with real humans as opposed to mechanical instruments and computers. And the fact that the Unity album is much better than his solo output (in my opinion).

I don't have a problem with mechanical instruments and computers per se, but that project always seemed awfully overwrought and not really worth it for anything other than novelty effect

Yeah, most of Orchestrion was pretty boring, speaking as a fan. Tap is fantastically great though imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCnDfg8FSvc

that sucked

search: bright sized life and watercolors - wonderful pastoral guitar stuff. terje rypdal hits this spot as well sometimes, he's kinda more ecstatic than pat, though.

Bright Sized Life is the only one I've been able to get into (mostly because it reminds me of his work with Joni Mitchell) - not sure if he did anything else in that vein.

kin is totally wonderful

letter from home is a great album.

Still haven't really found a way in to liking most of his music in spite of what a brilliant guitarist he is. I guess when I do I will finally officially be old.

Wow, "...Wichita..." side one is completely wonderful and sui generis. Thanks thread!

Still haven't really found a way in to liking most of his music in spite of what a brilliant guitarist he is.

He IS hard to pin down. There´s the "film composer guy", the "Ornette music guy", the "ECM new age-guy", the "noise guy" and much much more. And he likes to innovate, working with a 42-string, a Synth and baritone guitar and performing with the Orchestrion. On electric guitar he has been very concerned with sound too, nowadays his tone on hollowbody guitar is totally lacking any effects, as opposed to the delay-sound of the 70s.

Being so diverse might be risky, it´s impossible to like everything he does. He did this 2cd with the 99-00 Trio that I didn´t like much as every track was in a totally different style - it didn´t make sense to me and there was one horrible noise-track on it too. It does have a nice version of "Unity Village" on where he plays both melody and chords though (on BSL the parts are seperated and overdubbed). The guy has a great sense for melodies (such as "A Map of the World") and is a great guitarist. There´s tons of things to learn from those sheet music books.

Been listening to Offramp lately. Don't really know much about this guy but there's something really interesting about this superficially cheesy music.

Such a good album. You might like As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls if you haven't heard it.

RIP

Fuck you for making me look

lol

he seems like a really interesting guy to talk to

i really like about 33% of his music which i think is a good average for a guy whose discography is so large and diverse

I find that I often enjoy his oddball one-off albums more than a lot of the stuff he does with the Group

I love how in metheny's takedown of Kenny g, his answer to the "is Kenny g jazz" question is: yes he's jazz, it's just hard to tell because he's such an amateur improviser.

If I like (and by like, I mean LOVE) 'Offramp', what else should I listen to? Doesn't have to be by PM.

Offramp is a really great record....

Still Life (Talking), particularly the first track, so good!

as for non PM, Bob James BJ4 could be a good chaser for some nautical vibes and serene feelings

I especially like how Offramp manages to straddle the line between New Age/Easy Listening and weird/out there. It's got a serene feeling but also an underlying atmosphere of uneasiness and peculiarity. A comparison would be Boards of Canada in that respect (not that they sound the same, but it's a similar approach).

Something else it reminds me of, in terms of vibe, is Oxygene. That haunted, kind of euro vibe.

I was going to recommend Wichita Falls but then I saw that I recommended it to you two months ago. Comparatively more recently, you could try The Way Up.

i'll try both. that bob james album was really good, saer, if a bit funkier than Offramp.

Not really related to the Offramp sound, but something I think you might like if you've never heard it: Electric Counterpoint.

(As Falls Wichita is the one Metheny album I actually love.)

I'm listening to Floating Points - Silhouettes (I, II, III) and this is one of the closest modern analogues I can find to Offramp in some ways...

Metheny's on the new album by saxophonist Logan Richardson, Shift, which comes out on Friday on Blue Note. It's really good. Here's a sample track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gftN8IQpp0k

I have a real soft spot for the warm, "children's music" sound of some of those '70s ECM dates - Bright Size Life, solo Chick Corea, Eberhard Weber's Colours of Chloe. I don't even get where it was coming from, but it reminds me of being five years old and watching weird-ass promos and station identifications on the local PBS network, which probably used some of that music between Sesame Street and The Electric Company.

(Or at least they used Windham Hill.)

― save the robot (save the robot), Friday, December 30, 2005 11:11 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Thank you for nailing the appeal of Metheny for me! I'm glad I'm not the only one with these associations. American Garage is not an album I would ever try to defend in objective terms, but I love it unashamedly. I also like a few others (all covered here: Offramp, As Falls Wichita, Bright Size Life) but this is the one that I always pull out, and never fails to make me really happy. We're probably about the same age, because I remember all those 'station IDs' and promos on PBS, too (also the pubic access channel). This stuff also reminds me of sitcom theme music from this period. I never really understood why the Brits loved the Ghost Box label so much but via this epiphany wrt Metheny / proto-Weather Channel (and, yes, Windham Hill!) nostalgia, it's starting to make a lot more sense.

https://dp1eoqdp1qht7.cloudfront.net/community/projects/917/685/164473/2812136-o_1b652pkp91u0i5u7tas484pfo7-full.JPG

From this page:

https://ideas.lego.com/projects/164473

Excellent. I came across this Pat track a few weeks ago. I don't know much about this Polish singer, but she has an amazing voice and must be quite popular as this is a pretty high budget presentation. I thought it was a cool version of the tune. They also have a version of "This Is Not America" which is quite good too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-rUzpW1Glo

Well, this fucking sucks:

R.I.P. Lyle Mays (1953-2020)
It is with great sadness that we have to report the passing of our friend and brother, Lyle Mays (1953-2020). He passed today in Los Angeles after a long battle with a recurring illness, surrounded by loved ones.https://t.co/goeTusSnpC pic.twitter.com/2SOYIXUw84

— Pat Metheny (@PatMetheny) February 11, 2020

Very sad, he was a truly great and underappreciated pianist

Last night my wife confused Pat Metheny with Chuck Mangionne, which led to lots of shared laughs and the decision that Metheny fans ought to be referred to as "Meth Heads"

still life (talking) is just so wildly good

Tbh I'm not sure I've ever listened to any Metheny, though David Blamires is a fixture in my guitar teacher's cover band.

still life (talking) is just so wildly good

I bought this just for the first track and didn't really travel any further inland but thats all changing now!

It's definitely one of my favorites along with Bright Size Life and Offramp.

If you like the first track, also check out "The First Circle". Similarly epic and complex composition with euphoric vocals.

Thats the one with Yolanda You Learn on it? I like that track a lot, I should go inland with that record too!

I'm not really an albums person so tracks are usually disassociated for me and I'm not good with names

Same album, but you should check out the title track

I've been listening to the first PMG album from 78 on LP a lot recently. Sounds so good. Some really nice grooves.

Apparently that and New Chautauqua, which is a possible favourite, got p negative reviews in the contemporary RS record guide? It's not that surprising but does anyone have access to those? I enjoy reading quasi-ideological rockcrit pans from the Golden Age.

still life (talking) is just so wildly good

This is probably exactly backwards but I get a real Larry Heard travelling astral dream paths vibe from this album.

The trio recording Rejoicing on ECM is very nice, great version of “lonely woman”

(The Horace silver one...)

pat goes really wild on the guitar synth at one point

An out of nowhere find but at parts really interesting listen is this podcast discussion I found a few weeks ago between Alan Alda and Pat Metheny.

https://www.aldacommunicationtraining.com/podcast/pat-metheny-discovering-spontaneity-music-everything-else/

I’ve always wondered what a conversation between those two would be like.

I've been spinning Gary Burton's 'Ring' quite a bit lately, featuring a quite-young Metheney. He doesn't sound anything like himself, but it's good early ECM listening.

As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls is incredible, a recent discovery for me. whats the closest in sound to that one in his catalogue?

Travels or Offramp have Nana Vasconcelos on them which means they have his percussion and wordless vocals – but that’s about it, really. AFWSFWF is really a completely unique entry in Metheny’s catalogue.

It reminds me a bit of the longer, mostly instrumental pieces on Destroyer - Kaputt

As Falls Witchita... is such a great record.

Last Train Home from Still Life (Talking) is also so crazily evocative.

the self-titled pat metheny group record from 1978 is absolute bliss

Ha, that's the one I posted about a few weeks ago. So nice.

At this point I'm going to worry that every bump of an artist related topic will be about them dying of COVID-19 related complications.

.... come on

we already have a thread

recognising and putting aside that some Beato stuff is a little silly, this interview is fantastic -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEgalcH_-b4

Metheny is a really smart cookie. Might not like his music, but the dude has put some serious thought into what he does.

I went down a rabbit hole after watching this interview a few days ago and found older one. This section I thought was very interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czrHAyvdz5o

Crap, it did not post the time...section starts at around 15:44.

Eventually I want to check out that speech he gave at that Neuroscience convention. That Alan Alda podcast also has some really interesting dialog on improvisation and working as a group and how it works. It was really interesting to see them find common ground between acting and music.

I interviewed him the other week; it'll be on Stereogum soon. He is a really smart dude. We talked about Ornette, Derek Bailey, Charlie Haden...the stuff you'd expect me to ask him about.

This Beato interview is fascinating

Somehow I had never heard him talk about his music and technique before. I always pictured him as this kind of airy, new agey person, but he is way more sharp and direct than I imagined. Dude does not fuck around. The whole segment where he's going through the different ways you could work through the chords of "James" is astonishing.

Interview with Questlove today

https://pca.st/episode/1fcaf033-265a-4f37-b184-d881bc42e541

Staying on the Pat Metheny data dive, I came across this article by Lyle Mays. This is also an interesting read that fits in with some of these other interviews.

https://www.lylemays.com/something-left-unsaid

There's an intriguing review on Amazon of Metheny's "Offramp" album that I'd like to share here:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Music That Could Change An Outcome"
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2019
Verified Purchase
In the 80s a girl brought this album and a bottle of wine to my place. She was gorgeous but I was involved and as a result never heard the album until now. I wonder how differently the night might'veended if I had played it then
4 people found this helpful

My Stereogum interview with Metheny just went up.

He's making the rounds!

Favorite Metheny moment: the rapid-fire trading with Kenny Garrett on here (also at the end of Lonnie's Lament on that record)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd3oiusxK4g

I love that he shouts out Joe Dyson, I saw him play a few times in New Orleans with different people when he was very young and knew he had it, he's a fantastic drummer.

Wow, I've other people do the mechanical instrument thing (Dan Deacon, Squarepusher - which doesn't sound worlds away from this), but the scale of his Orchestrion setup is pretty insane

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evHVh4bqaOQ

How would *you* like to be his roadie? Even Terry Bozzio's guy would be all "no thanks."

That Tim Martin is looking well

The Music That Made Me is back! Tonight multi-award winning guitar legend Pat Metheny chooses The Beatles, Wes Montgomery and Gary Burton.

The Music That Made Me with Pat Metheny, this evening from 9pm

| @PatMetheny | pic.twitter.com/DGTCPvL4Mn

— Jazz FM (@jazzfm) September 5, 2021

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/entertainment/music/story/2023-10-30/heckler-evicted-from-pat-metheny-solo-guitar-concert

Staying on the Pat Metheny data dive, I came across this article by Lyle Mays. This is also an interesting read that fits in with some of these other interviews.

https://www.lylemays.com/something-left-unsaid🕸

There's a lot of interesting information there, but Mays sure didn't suffer from a lack of self-regard.

The last paragraph shows a lot of humility, though.

Listening to Offramp right now. I never had the patience for this album when it came out, but it sounds crazily good now.

There's a lot of interesting information there, but Mays sure didn't suffer from a lack of self-regard.

Man, savetherobot just hepped me to this article and it is just amazing.

Thanks for posting that! A great read. I bought of a lot of Pat's music through Discogs over the last two years and I'm amazed at the consistently high quality of all of them. Planning to do the same with Lyle Mays' solo work.

This was a release I was not familiar with: Gary Thomas – Till We Have Faces with Pat on guitar.

Was it ever reported or revealed what that heckler was heckling?

pat's funny guitar guy faces.

"Get a haircut!!"

"...or at least style it or somethin, jeez!"

Going back through some Metheny records and I definitely don't vibe with all of it, but there is so much great stuff. Generally the smaller the group, the better. His solo guitar record from this year is lovely.

Trio 99>00 (w/Bill Stewart & Grenadier) is sounding amazing. The Scofield record (I Can See Your House From Here) is a classic. Rejoicing (Charlie Haden/Billy Higgins) is really nice, good joke to open with "Lonely Woman" on a record with two Ornette Coleman alums and multiple Ornette tunes, but it's not THAT Lonely Woman, it's the Horace Silver tune.

Love it when he switches to acoustic on ballads

love the “lonely woman” on rejoicing. The bside is weird!

Whoa, it really is, out comes the guitar synth!

'Question and Answer' is another Metheny trio date to check out with Dave Holland and Roy Haynes. The title track I would put in my list of favorite tunes by PM.

Trio 99>00 (w/Bill Stewart & Grenadier) is sounding amazing.

Agreed. I remember reading that was recorded in one day after a long tour where none of that material was played. There is no guitar synthesizer on the whole record. Great (and hard to play) arrangement of "A Lot of Living To Do".

The Scofield record (I Can See Your House From Here) is a classic.

I got this one recently. If you like this one, you'll probably like "The Sound of the Summer Running" by Marc Johnson that has both Pat and Bill Frisell. Tasteful, restrained duo playing. In that same category I'd put "Beyond the Missouri Sky". The most recent one is also very nice.

There's another showcase one that's pretty good, Scofield's "Grace Under Pressure," with Frisell, Charlie Haden and Joey Baron.

I listened to a bit of Question & Answer yesterday and while the playing is great and Roy Haynes is beguiling on it, the early '90s sound was driving me a little crazy, like the tone of the flat ride cymbal and the bass (not to get all Steve Hoffman about it). I put on Like Minds (the Gary Burton record that also has Metheny, Haynes, and Holland).

Also thinking about how perfect Bill Stewart sounds on those trio records (99>00 and the live one). Like he's clearly listening to everything and reactive, but also has such a big bag of slick shit that he's worked out on his own, and everything is perfectly placed and clear. It's just very different from later period Haynes & Higgins, which is a much rawer thing with the weight of history behind it. No slight to either thing, Stewart is unique & brilliant, just different.

The first I heard Stewart was on those Maceo Parker soul jazz records. so good.

Damn the version of 'Question & Answer' on Trio Live is really worth checking out...they play the whole tune through properly once, and then the guitar synth comes out (but it's cool) and they just rip for another 10 minutes.

I love how committed he is to that one guitar synth patch, it seems so antithetical to the idea of synths, but dammit he's going to play the fuck out of that patch

Haha. Ok I think Trio>Live is now officially my favorite Metheny album.

It's great that Metheny likes to switch things up and also keeps hiring young musicians (his current drummer is Joe Dyson, a great New Orleans drummer who I saw with Donald Harrison when he was probably 15). But it's also insane that he's never reunited this trio in the last 20+ years (?).

This random facebook page has a full concert: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=506269073217146

Fucking Bill Stewart.

Check out Bill (and everyone!) killing it on this Mingus cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LvXPjUcIcQ

Full band, btw:
Maceo Parker – alto saxophone, piano, organ
Fred Wesley – trombone
Alfred "Pee Wee" Ellis – tenor saxophone
Don Pullen – organ
Rodney Jones – guitar
Bill Stewart – drums
Bootsy Collins – bass guitar, guitar

I think those Maceo albums were also the first time I heard Bill Stewart, love that he was in that band. It's great to hear him play pocket and just keep it there, but still be able to hear the little Bill Stewart details.

The one time I saw him live was with John Scofield. I assume he's well-regarded, but I never hear anyone (outside of drummers) talk about him. Then again, not sure who outside of drummers would talk about him, lol.

Damn, I've never seen him. His trio with Larry Goldings and Peter Bernstein was playing in Milwaukee a few years ago and I didn't make the trip. I think any modern jazz musician would talk about him pretty reverently, same as Brian Blade or anyone from that generation, I think they're living legends at this point.

Some fun breakdowns here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gA6XaUiX68

My recent Rock Nacional studies led me to wonder about Pedro Aznar’s time with Pat but I haven’t really grokked it yet.

I did see the Bill Stewart Larry Goldings Peter Bernstein trio somewhat recently in the beforetimes at the Jazz Standard and it was as good as advertised.

I love how committed he is to that one guitar synth patch, it seems so antithetical to the idea of synths, but dammit he's going to play the fuck out of that patch

Lol, good to know.

There some great sets by John Scofield's (w/Bill Stewart) and Bill Frisell's current trios here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30f1xTrVqXU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEfgRFzbgjU

Who is that Frisell drummer?

Rudy Royston

This is another good Bill Stewart on drums set with Scofield and Steve Swallow filmed for European TV in NYC. It is pretty much like having a chair right at the front of the stage. Really cool to see these people play that close up and it sounds excellent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIMkmbxwpco

Vimeo has an on-demand John Scofield documentary. Included are several bonus features, including one with Pat Metheny (11 min).

this is good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIILHmcVc2Y

ridiculous i been sleepin on pat metheny all this time

— Flea (@flea333) April 1, 2024

RHCP are good again

Kinda hard to believe a bit considering PMs first record is one of the primary Jaco albums. Id figure he would know that one.

this bright size life album is fucking rad

— Flea (@flea333) April 1, 2024

April Fools?