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Pat Metheny: Detroit Free Press


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  • 3 weeks later...

Good discussion about important elements of how and why the music is handed down. Appreciate it. Musicians in their 60's, and the community around them, know. They just know -- this is what it is about. Being an individual, playing recognizably as you. As in literature, having a voice. It might be a mash up of other voices as in the encyclopedic style of Thomas Pynchon, but it's still unmistakably his voice. Then there's the ensemble awareness and how one's frequency range contributes to the whole range the band is putting out, as opposed to stomping on it and hogging the range. What is it to contribute to the ensemble...playing standards or improvising, who's taught to think about that by academia? 

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Thank you Mark, this was great. You managed to get Pat to go in areas that usuaally I've only seen European interviewers go, to get him to go deep about the music.  When I speak  with him, that is my goal as well, I love what he said about the parallels between jazz improvisation and llanguage.  On the Unity Sessions DVD, both Chris Potter and Metheny discuss the ways in which to make things sound fresh every night after so many gigs.  Potter wasn't used to playing with such a fixed set list, but he enjoyed it.  There are times where I think I've heard Pat say everything he is going to say on "Are You Going With Me?" or "James" or "All The Things You Are" but there are times like the way you describe in the write up of the gig with Ron Carter, the level of inspiration pushes him into areas where he plays things that are so fresh.  I think of "Til We Have Faces" by Gary Thomas, or both "Unity Band" and "Kin" found Pat playing with a wonderful renewed fire.  I enjoy all things he does b/c I take time to really listen, somethings I like more than others but Pat is such a remarkably consistent artist, regardless of personal taste.

Edited by CJ Shearn
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