Classic Or Dud: Pat Metheny

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.)