It is a rare thing to find an individual musician who can move effortlessly from gentle acoustic playing to frenetic and 'challenging' jazz freak-outs. Over his long career, jazz guitarist Pat Metheny has explored many different musical landscapes and he manages to find a purety of expression in each of them.
He is best known for his work with the Pat Metheny Group, which for many years included his closest musical partners, pianist Lyle Mays, who sadly died last month, and bassist Steve Rodby.
Outside of the group, he has collaborated with vibraphone legend Gary Burton, bassist Charlie Haden and with Chick Corea, among many others. Metheny began recording professionally in the 1970s alongside the legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius, another player who had that ability to shift from the tender to the jarring.
Metheny's recorded work is often melodic and played with a distinctive style that once heard is seldom forgotten. But he has also wandered off into darker areas, taking influences from free jazzers like Ornette Coleman. On many of his albums, over the last 20 years especially, there are moments that jolt the listener. He doesn't always play safe and has never been afraid to push the boundaries.
Now 65, he has reached a point where he feels able to revisit some of his most popular tunes, with the help of his three-piece band, consisting of Gwilym Simcock on piano, Linda May Han Oh on bass and Antonio Sanchez on drums.
For his current audience, many of whom are here for the nice tunes, the good news is that Metheny will be playing
reasonably familiar material. He told the audience he
started out with a short tour two years ago ‘playing the hits’, which he
admitted was unusual. It’s gone down so well with audiences he has just
kept going, extending the tour into places like NZ, where he has only been
once before in his almost 50 year career.
So the audience on Tuesday in Auckland were treated to a set full of familiar tunes, for those with the Pat Metheny Group albums
(songs like Phase Dance, Bright Size Life, Last Train Home, Have You Heard, Better Days Ahead) and the ‘As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls’ album he made with Lyle Mays in 1981, a favourite of mine.
As the concert began, Metheny sat alone at the centre of the stage holding a very strange looking instrument - a many headed monster called a Manzer Pikasso. incorporating 6 and 12 string guitars and various other strings spanning across its body - 42 strings and he utilised them all, to great effect.
The set also featured material from his various collaborations, plus a piece from
the solo acoustic album ‘One Quiet Night’. And in the acoustic medley for the encore, there was even a snatch of his one genuine hit ‘This Is Not
America’, the song he recorded with David Bowie.
photo: Zed Pics
Metheny is still one of the most accomplished and versatile
guitarists I’ve ever seen. I once saw him and the group up-close at the Half Moon pub in
Putney (London) playing Ornette Coleman 'tunes' and jazz standards as a warm up for his UK tour. To this day, I don't think I've ever seen a virtuoso musician in that close proximity and it remains one of the most mind-blowing shows I've seen.
If you're in any doubt about his abilities, just check out this short clip promoting the 2020 tour.
His latest band, of quite a different generation to Metheny himself, are energetic and certainly accomplished in their own right, with Simcock proving to be a
powerful and nimble-fingered piano player. It was fitting to see his strong
performance in the week we lost the great McCoy Tyner.
I was also
especially struck with upright bassist Linda Oh, who showed once again
how women have come to the fore as bass players in recent years. I’m
thinking Esperanza Spalding, Tal Wilkenfeld and Rhonda Smith, in particular. Linda was a delightful presence on the stage and added a particular lyricism on the bass during the more reflective pieces.
photo: Zed Pics
Here, Metheny plays the song Slip Away, accompanied by Oh and Antonio Sanchez.
Sanchez
has a percussive approach to the drums; he's a kind of instinctual, reactive drummer in the
style of Brian Blade. Impressive. Anyone who has seen the movie Birdman may recall the soundtrack, which was composed and played by Sanchez.
Towards the end of the show, Metheny duetted with each member of the band in turn. He and Sanchez were the last of the duets and began by playing the Metheny tune Question and Answer. Butthe tune soon became less recognisable as they built up a dissonant crescendo of sound - Metheny playing his guitar synth in a frenzy and Sanchez at the end scraping the edge of his cymbals. It was exciting to watch, but would certainly have freaked out some of the more conservative members of the audience.
Listening to the set, I realised I have a lot more Pat Metheny on various media than I thought, including some on cassette that I haven't listened to for years. These include a wonderful album called 'Beyond The Missouri Sky' recorded in New York in 1996 with bassist Charlie Haden.
Metheny grew up in Missouri and his more reflective acoustic music, of which this is a perfect example, is inspired by the remote and often desolate landscapes of that part of America.
A selection of my music and video featuring Pat Metheny
I have several of Metheny's 1970s and 80s ECM albums on vinyl, which are played fairly regularly. My favourites are a couple of his albums with Gary Burton recorded before he formed the Pat Metheny Group, and a more recent Burton album, Like Minds, where Burton reunited with early collaborators including Pat Metheny and Chick Corea, who had never previously played together.
My other favourite of the ECM era is the Pat Metheny/Lyle Mays album As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls. It features the song September 15th, which pays tribute to one of their heroes, Bill Evans. It's an almost meditative album, full of atmosphere and reflection, while also managing to be uplifting.
Other regulars from the CD era were Imaginary Day and the live album, The Road To You. The song 'Have You Heard' from that album drew one of the biggest cheers of the night from the Auckland audience. The DVD We Live Here mirrors the material on The Road To You and gives a good illustration of the Pat Metheny Group in the mid 1990s, when they were probably at the height of their popularity.
The other DVD in the collection pictured above is of Joni Mitchell's Shadows and Light tour in 1980, which featured Metheny and Mays alongside Jaco Pastorius, Don Alias on drums and Michael Brecker on saxophone. Metheny plays a fittingly ethereal solo on Joni's song Amelia.
Here's another live beauty - The Gathering Sky, which features a solo by drummer Antonio Sanchez.
He is best known for his work with the Pat Metheny Group, which for many years included his closest musical partners, pianist Lyle Mays, who sadly died last month, and bassist Steve Rodby.
Outside of the group, he has collaborated with vibraphone legend Gary Burton, bassist Charlie Haden and with Chick Corea, among many others. Metheny began recording professionally in the 1970s alongside the legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius, another player who had that ability to shift from the tender to the jarring.
Metheny's recorded work is often melodic and played with a distinctive style that once heard is seldom forgotten. But he has also wandered off into darker areas, taking influences from free jazzers like Ornette Coleman. On many of his albums, over the last 20 years especially, there are moments that jolt the listener. He doesn't always play safe and has never been afraid to push the boundaries.
Now 65, he has reached a point where he feels able to revisit some of his most popular tunes, with the help of his three-piece band, consisting of Gwilym Simcock on piano, Linda May Han Oh on bass and Antonio Sanchez on drums.
For his current audience, many of whom are here for the nice tunes, the good news is that Metheny will be playing reasonably familiar material. He told the audience he started out with a short tour two years ago ‘playing the hits’, which he admitted was unusual. It’s gone down so well with audiences he has just kept going, extending the tour into places like NZ, where he has only been once before in his almost 50 year career.
As the concert began, Metheny sat alone at the centre of the stage holding a very strange looking instrument - a many headed monster called a Manzer Pikasso. incorporating 6 and 12 string guitars and various other strings spanning across its body - 42 strings and he utilised them all, to great effect.
The set also featured material from his various collaborations, plus a piece from the solo acoustic album ‘One Quiet Night’. And in the acoustic medley for the encore, there was even a snatch of his one genuine hit ‘This Is Not America’, the song he recorded with David Bowie.
If you're in any doubt about his abilities, just check out this short clip promoting the 2020 tour.
His latest band, of quite a different generation to Metheny himself, are energetic and certainly accomplished in their own right, with Simcock proving to be a powerful and nimble-fingered piano player. It was fitting to see his strong performance in the week we lost the great McCoy Tyner.
I was also especially struck with upright bassist Linda Oh, who showed once again how women have come to the fore as bass players in recent years. I’m thinking Esperanza Spalding, Tal Wilkenfeld and Rhonda Smith, in particular. Linda was a delightful presence on the stage and added a particular lyricism on the bass during the more reflective pieces.
Sanchez has a percussive approach to the drums; he's a kind of instinctual, reactive drummer in the style of Brian Blade. Impressive. Anyone who has seen the movie Birdman may recall the soundtrack, which was composed and played by Sanchez.
Towards the end of the show, Metheny duetted with each member of the band in turn. He and Sanchez were the last of the duets and began by playing the Metheny tune Question and Answer. But the tune soon became less recognisable as they built up a dissonant crescendo of sound - Metheny playing his guitar synth in a frenzy and Sanchez at the end scraping the edge of his cymbals. It was exciting to watch, but would certainly have freaked out some of the more conservative members of the audience.
Listening to the set, I realised I have a lot more Pat Metheny on various media than I thought, including some on cassette that I haven't listened to for years. These include a wonderful album called 'Beyond The Missouri Sky' recorded in New York in 1996 with bassist Charlie Haden.
Metheny grew up in Missouri and his more reflective acoustic music, of which this is a perfect example, is inspired by the remote and often desolate landscapes of that part of America.
The album with Haden also includes the theme music from the movie Cinema Paradiso.
My other favourite of the ECM era is the Pat Metheny/Lyle Mays album As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls. It features the song September 15th, which pays tribute to one of their heroes, Bill Evans. It's an almost meditative album, full of atmosphere and reflection, while also managing to be uplifting.
Other regulars from the CD era were Imaginary Day and the live album, The Road To You. The song 'Have You Heard' from that album drew one of the biggest cheers of the night from the Auckland audience. The DVD We Live Here mirrors the material on The Road To You and gives a good illustration of the Pat Metheny Group in the mid 1990s, when they were probably at the height of their popularity.
The other DVD in the collection pictured above is of Joni Mitchell's Shadows and Light tour in 1980, which featured Metheny and Mays alongside Jaco Pastorius, Don Alias on drums and Michael Brecker on saxophone. Metheny plays a fittingly ethereal solo on Joni's song Amelia.
Here's another live beauty - The Gathering Sky, which features a solo by drummer Antonio Sanchez.
In this interview, Metheny talks fondly of working with Bowie.