Pat Metheny - Live in 2020 and way back in time

It is a rare thing to find an individual musician who can move effortlessly from gentle acoustic playing to frenetic jazz freak-outs. Over his long career, jazz guitarist Pat Metheny has explored many different musical landscapes and he manages to find a purity 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. 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.

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.

In this interview, Metheny talks fondly of working with Bowie.

 

And finally, an update to this blog, the great interview that Rick Beato did with Pat in 2021. 

Neil Finn's triumphant return to NZ with Fleetwood Mac

Neil Finn is almost certainly New Zealand's greatest popular music export. For the sheer quality of his songwriting over a 40-year career, there's no one to touch him. Yet, despite all those years of touring and making records, nothing could have prepared him for suddenly being part of one of the biggest bands in the world. 

When he joined Fleetwood Mac last year, replacing Lindsey Buckingham, the stakes got much higher.

Finn is New Zealand's Paul McCartney, the creator of many memorable tunes including 'I Got You' for Split Enz, 'Don't Dream It's Over' and 'Weather With You' and many others for Crowded House. In his solo career he has also collaborated with his brother Tim and others including Shawn Colvin, Jeff Tweedy and Wendy & Lisa. 

Me with Neil Finn messing about on the river in 2008

Comparisons with McCartney are not so far-fetched. Neil's melodies are clearly influenced in some ways by The Beatles and Neil is a big fan of Paul's. 

My one meeting with Neil was on a boat cruise along the river Thames in 2008. He talked about McCartney and how much he loved the album 'Ram', one of Paul's early solo records.

I first saw Neil live in 2001, just a few weeks after my family and I had emigrated to New Zealand. He was promoting a new solo album, One Nil, which featured songs he had created with Prince's former associates Wendy & Lisa. It's a great album and you can hear the positive influence that Wendy & Lisa had on his music. I wish he had done more work with them.

The live shows from that tour, in Auckland at the St James Theatre, were billed as '7 Worlds Collide, Neil Finn & Friends'. They featured Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder and Johnny Marr from The Smiths, with Ed O'Brien and Phil Selway from Radiohead. 

Neil was clearly very comfortable in this collaborative setting and the concept was extended in 2008 when he convened a second '7 Worlds Collide' project. 

This yielded the double CD 'And The Sun Came Out'. Singing and songwriting contributions were divided amongst the group, which featured Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche, John Stirratt and Pat Sansone of Wilco, Radiohead's Phil Selway, Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall and New Zealand songwriters Don McGlashan and Bic Runga. 

I mentioned to Neil when I met him that I have enjoyed these collaborations, including the work with Wendy & Lisa, almost as much as his regular solo gig and the Crowded House albums. He said it was all part of keeping things fresh and interesting, for him as much as for the listener. 

When Crowded House reformed in 2007, I saw them play at Hyde Park in London. The show was notable for the fact that when they played 'Weather With You' Neil was rapping with the crowd about how the sun was shining in Hyde Park, while it was raining at Glastonbury. 

Soon enough, the dark clouds loomed overhead. A little later, after Neil had told the black clouds to go away (he didn't say it as politely as that..) the heavens opened.

I've seen him a few times since then, on the boat in London - playing with his wife and son Liam as the group 'Breakfast Club' - and back in Auckland with Tim when they had an album out together. 

Then he joined Fleetwood Mac last year, which came right out of the blue. He wouldn't have been on anyone's list of people likely to replace Lindsey Buckingham - except for the one person who mattered, Mick Fleetwood. 

Here's TVNZ's interview with Neil about how he got the gig.

When the live shows were announced for Auckland, I grabbed some tickets, mainly because I wanted to see Neil coming home to play in NZ. 

And it was emotional. On Thursday night, the first of four shows at Auckland's Spark Arena, Fleetwood Mac - with NZ boy Neil Finn fronting them - put on a great show. From the moment he first engaged the crowd with "Kia ora, Auckland!" and launched into a hearty version of 'Second Hand News' it was clear Neil was fired up for this show. 

He got a lovely reception from his home crowd and it really was emotional to see him fronting the Mac, belting out the Split Enz classic ‘I Got You’ and the wonderful ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ - watch this clip:

In their between-song chat, Mick Fleetwood and Stevie Nicks showed the utmost respect for Neil, his songs and what they meant to audiences around the world. Referring to 'Don't Dream It's Over', Fleetwood said, "Many years ago, I heard the most beautiful song. I had no idea who was singing it ... or from whence they came ... but it stayed right in my heart and all these years later, we play it together, now with a dear, dear friend of mine, who came from these parts here."

What a proud moment.

Musically, the band sounded polished (after 75 gigs, I suppose you'd expect them to be) and the two new guys gave the music just the right amount of rock and roll bite. Tom Petty's guitar partner Mike Campbell took most of the responsibility for Lindsay's lead guitar parts and the band paid tribute to Petty with a version of Free Falling (Stevie singing) as part of their encore. They also paid tribute to Peter Green, the Mac's original lead guitarist in the 1960s - covering his songs Oh Well, Man Of The World and Black Magic Woman.

Check 'em out if you can while they're still in NZ. Two more shows in Auckland this week (16th and 19th) and one in Dunedin on the 21st.

Here are two different views of 'I Got You' in Auckland:
Part 1

and Part 2

Fleetwood Mac's Set list in Auckland:

The Chain / Little Lies / Dreams / Second Hand News / Say You Love Me/ Black Magic Woman /Everywhere / I Got You / Rhiannon / World Turning / Gypsy/ Oh Well/ Man of the World / Don't Dream It's Over/ Landslide / Hold Me / You Make Loving Fun / Gold Dust Woman / Go Your Own Way / Free Fallin' / Don't Stop

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