Classic Or Dud: Pat Metheny

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