Pat Metheny, leader and sideman

[Joe G]

I would say that it's entirely possible. I can hear a kinship on some of her stuff. Heck, when I played Concert in the Garden for Jim A, he thought the guitarist was Metheny (it was Ben Monder).

[CJ Shearn]

how can anyone not love "Are You Going With Me?"

[Joe G]

Well, Rooster's here, why don't we ask him?

[Joe G]

I placed an order for some RPW. I'll let you know what I think of it.

[Alon Marcus]

Just a link to a little something you all might enjoy.

The Link

[mjzee]

I'm impressed by Pat Metheny...I think he has a great deal of musical integrity. He's managed to walk that fine line between artistry and commerce, has never really sold out, has championed music for its own sake, and still manages to sell tons of records. He's a fine exemplar.

My favorites are his work with Gary Burton (see "Passengers"), PMG from '78, the disk with Jim Hall, the disk with Scofield (by the way, it's really great that Metheny doesn't mind supporting other artists, doesn't mind taking second billing; that's why I think that, for him, the music's first, and learning from other musicians)...and the one time I heard it, I even liked "No Tolerance for Silence." Good banging-your-head-against-the-wall music.

As an aside, I worked in a jazz record store when the '78 PMG disk came out. When it came in, we just thought "ok, another ECM release," came in with prob. 5 other ECM titles released the same day. And it started flying out of the store! It sold out so quickly, and we had to reorder...and reorder... soon we ordered in box lots. The word was definitely out, and there was an electricity around this record. Interestingly, you know that LP's jacket was white; in the initial release, there was also a fine vertical texture to the jacket (ECM was always into those sorts of details). Once they had to mass-produce the album, the texture got lost, and it became a plain white cover.

[CJ Shearn]

buh buh buh buh buh ba buh buh ba buh ((chik-chik-chik-chik)) comeon Joe, whip out your virtual guitar synthesizer!

[Joe G]

[kh1958]

i'm worrying over my electric blues suggestion, tho' Magic Sam was brilliant... you can go a bit earlier w/the Texans & Chess guys but, what the hell, Magic Sam it is.

On Magic Sam, I'd say get West Side Soul (Delmark) first. It's both one of the greatest blues recordings and the best Magic Sam recording.

[Rooster_Ties]

I'm impressed by Pat Metheny...I think he has a great deal of musical integrity.  He's managed to walk that fine line between artistry and commerce, has never really sold out, has championed music for its own sake, and still manages to sell tons of records.  He's a fine exemplar.

And despite my comments up above, believe it or not, I'm mostly impressed by Pat Metheny...I mostly think he has a great deal quite a bit of musical integrity. (And believe it or not, I do think) he's managed to walk that fine line between artistry and commerce, has pretty much never really sold out, and has championed music for its own sake (especially with his project with Ornette, and brilliant covers of Ornette tunes here and there).

I think he's a good guy, and I do have musical respect for him.

It's just that despite all that, much of his music still doesn't speak to me -- or more specifically, bugs the heck out of me.

Edited January 1, 2005 by Rooster_Ties

[Jim Alfredson]

I'm impressed by Pat Metheny...I think he has a great deal of musical integrity. He's managed to walk that fine line between artistry and commerce, has never really sold out, has championed music for its own sake, and still manages to sell tons of records. He's a fine exemplar.

Yes, but does he follow the "two standards per disc" rule?

[Herb]

Actually, Jim. I don't think he ever followed any rules!

[Aggie87]

Heads up for a new Metheny release:

METHENY + MEHLDAU CD COMING SOON

This past December Pat and pianist Brad Mehldau teamed up for a long discussed and highly anticipated joint project together. Meeting in a New York recording studio for a week, the two musicians each arrived with an armful of new tunes written just for this occasion along with a few older pieces by both. The six day session resulted in what Pat has called "one of the most truly inspiring and satisfying collaborative occasions I have ever experienced". Look for the CD the last week of August. The music features Metheny/Mehldau duets and performances of Pat with the Brad Mehldau Trio (featuring Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard). Watch for tour dates in the US and Europe in the first half of 2007.

(i cross posted this in the Mehldau thread too)...

[Joe G]

Not sure what to expect with that, but I'm interested.

I finally got that 20th anniversary Song X... love it. The added tunes are all excellent, and the remastering is a big improvement.

[Hot Ptah]

I think that he is a major artist with a very inconsistent recorded output--some of it is way more compelling than some of the rest of it. That is not so unusual. There are a lot of artists like that.

[CJ Shearn]

the Mehldau collaboration should be interesting, looking forward to picking it up, but what I'm really waiting for is The Way Up: Live DVD being released this fall.

[Joe G]

[7/4]

PAT METHENY

“Day Trip” (Nonesuch)

The guitarist Pat Metheny has made some of his most engagingly forthright music in trios, enlisting just a bassist and a drummer for support. “Bright Size Life” (ECM), his auspicious 1976 debut, falls into this category. So do a surprisingly small handful of subsequent studio albums throughout his prolific career: roughly one per decade, each with a different trio, and each more or less a classic. It’s no small thing that “Day Trip,” his second since the turn of the century, is at least as good as any of the others.

Mr. Metheny entrusts a lot of heavy lifting to the bassist Christian McBride and the drummer Antonio Sanchez, a rhythm team he has already tested on the road. (They’ll start up again in a few weeks for a tour that ends March 18 at Town Hall.) And he savors the contrast between these proficient sidemen, which might fancifully be described as the difference between earth and sea. Mr. McBride is a bedrock player, authoritative with tempos; Mr. Sanchez has a way of articulating pulse as a play of current and tide.

To anyone even casually acquainted with the big-horizon sweep of the Pat Metheny Group (which also features Mr. Sanchez), what comes next is obvious: Mr. Metheny stands in for sky. Yet his playing, on the brisk near-sambas that bookend the album and virtually all that comes between, only occasionally feels diaphanous or airy. More often it conveys a sense of proportion, substance and coherence, along with rigorous clarity; solid benchmarks for any great improviser at the peak of his game.

And for the first time on a trio record, Mr. Metheny includes only original compositions here. They make unpretentious sense as a whole, with foursquare ballads clearing a bit of breathing room between ebullient post-bop exertions. More than halfway through, there’s a pair of pointedly titled songs: “Is This America? (Katrina 2005),” a calm acoustic elegy, and “When We Were Free,” a waltz first heard on the Pat Metheny Group album “Quartet.” But the message takes a back seat to the music, which tenders its own rewards. NATE CHINEN, NYTimes. 1/29/2008

[7/4]

[robviti]

...And he savors the contrast between these proficient sidemen, which might fancifully be described as the difference between earth and sea...what comes next is obvious: Mr. Metheny stands in for sky...