Patrick Bruce Metheny
(pronounced Meth - eeny, born August 12, 1954, Lee's Summit, Missouri, United States) is an American jazz guitarist and composer.
One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects. His style incorporates elements of progressive- and contemporary jazz, post-bop, latin-jazz and jazz fusion. [1]
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PAT METHENY UNITY GROUP TICKETS
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Biography
Metheny was born and raised in Lee's Summit, Missouri, a suburb south-east of Kansas City. Following his graduation from
Lee's Summit High School, he briefly attended the
University of Miami in
Coral Gables, Florida. After Metheny withdrew from the University of Miami in his first semester, he was offered a teaching position.
Metheny came onto the jazz scene in 1975 when he joined vibraphonist
Gary Burton's band and recorded
Bright Size Life
with bassist
Jaco Pastorius and drummer
Bob Moses.
Metheny's next recording, 1977's
Watercolors
, was the first to feature pianist
Lyle Mays, Metheny's most frequent collaborator. Metheny's next album formalized this partnership and began the Pat Metheny Group, featuring several songs co-written with Mays; the album was released as the self-titled
Pat Metheny Group
on the
ECM record label. Pat Metheny also has released notable solo, trio, quartet and duet recordings with musicians such as
Jim Hall,
Dave Holland,
Roy Haynes,
Gary Burton,
Chick Corea,
Pedro Aznar,
Jaco Pastorius,
Charlie Haden,
John Scofield,
Jack DeJohnette,
Herbie Hancock,
Bill Stewart,
Ornette Coleman,
Brad Mehldau,
Joni Mitchell and many others.
Pat Metheny has also joined projects such as
Song X
with
Ornette Coleman;
Parallel Realities
; and
Jazz Baltica
, with
Ulf Wakenius and other Nordic Jazz players like
E.S.T.,
Nils Landgren and has played with some great female singers from all over the world such as
Silje Nergaard on
Tell Me Where You're Going (1990)
,
Noa on
Noa (1994)
and
Anna Maria Jopek on ''Upojenie (2002
)''.
Pat Metheny has been touring for more than 30 years, playing between 120-240 concerts a year.
Pat Metheny Group
The Pat Metheny Group is a jazz band founded in 1977. The first Pat Metheny Group release, 1978's
Pat Metheny Group
, featured the writing duo of Pat Metheny and pianist
Lyle Mays, a collaboration which would span over 25 years and 15 albums. The recording featured the bass playing of
Jaco Pastorius bass protégé
Mark Egan. The second group album,
American Garage
(1980), was a breakout hit, reaching #1 on the Billboard Jazz chart and crossing over onto the pop charts as well, largely on the strength of the up-tempo opening track "(Cross the) Heartland" which would become a signature tune for the group. This early incarnation of the group included
Dan Gottlieb (drums) and
Mark Egan (bass).
The group built upon its success through constant touring across the USA and Europe. The early group featured a unique sound, particularly due to Metheny's
Gibson ES-175 guitar coupled to two
digital delay units and Mays'
Oberheim and
Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 synthesizers and
Steinway piano. Even in this early state the band played in a wide range of styles from folk to rock to experimental. Metheny later started working with the
Roland GR-300 guitar synthesizer and the
Synclavier guitar system made by
New England Digital. Mays expanded his setup with the
Synclavier keyboard and later with many other synthesizers.
From 1982 to 1985 the Pat Metheny Group released
Offramp
(1982), a live set
Travels
(1983), and
First Circle
(1984), as well as
The Falcon and the Snowman
(1985), a soundtrack album for the movie of the same name in which they collaborated with
David Bowie. A single from the soundtrack, '
This Is Not America', reached number 14 in the British Top 40 in early 1985 as well as number 32 in the USA.
Offramp
marked the first appearance of bassist
Steve Rodby (replacing Mark Egan) and Brazilian "guest artist"
Nana Vasconcelos whose work on percussion and wordless vocals marked the first addition of Latin music shadings to the Group's sound, a trend which would continue and intensify on
First Circle
with the addition of Argentinian multi-instrumentalist
Pedro Aznar, which also marked the group debut of drummer
Paul Wertico (replacing Danny Gottlieb) - both Rodby and Wertico were members of the
Fred Simon Group at the time, and had played in Simon-Bard as well, in Chicago, before joining Metheny.
This period became a peak of commercial popularity of the band, especially for the live recording
Travels
.
First Circle
would also be Metheny's last project with the ECM label; Metheny had been a key artist for ECM but left over conceptual disagreements with label founder
Manfred Eicher. The next three Pat Metheny Group releases would be based around a further intensification of the Brazilian rhythms first heard in the early 1980s. Additional Latin musicians appear as guests, notably Brazilian percussion player Armando Marçal.
Still Life (Talking)
(1987) was the Group's first release on new label
Geffen Records, and featured several popular tracks.
The album's first tune, "Minuano (Six Eight)," represents a good example of the Pat Metheny group compositional style from this period: the track starts with a haunting minor section from Mays, lifts off in a trademark Metheny jubilant major-key melody, leading to a metric and harmonically-modulated interlude creating suspense which is finally resolved in the original major theme. Another popular highlight was "Last Train Home", a rhythmically relentless piece evoking the American Midwest. The 1989 release
Letter from Home
continued this approach, even more relentlessly Latin, in its bossa and samba pieces.
Metheny then again delved into adventurous solo and band projects, and four years went by before the release of the next record for the next Pat Metheny Group, a live set entitled
The Road to You
, which featured tracks from the two Geffen studio albums amongst new tunes. The group integrated new instrumentation and technologies into its work, notably Mays' unique playing technique accomplished by adding midi-controlled synth sounds at command during acoustic solos via a pedal on the piano.
Mays and Metheny themselves refer to the following three Pat Metheny Group releases as the triptych:
We Live Here
(1995),
Quartet
(1996), and
Imaginary Day
(1997). Moving away from the Latin style which had dominated the releases of the previous 10 years, these albums were the most wide-ranging and least commercial Group releases, including experimentations with hip-hop drum loops, free-form improvisation on acoustic instruments, and symphonic signatures, blues and sonata schemes.
After another hiatus, the Pat Metheny Group re-emerged in 2002 with the release
Speaking of Now
, another change in direction adding musicians to the band who are one generation younger and thus grew up with the Pat Metheny Group. The new members on the bandstand are the drummer Antonio Sanchez from Mexico City, trumpet player Cuong Vu, and bassist, vocalist, guitarist, and percussionist
Richard Bona from Cameroon.
The latest release, 2005's
The Way Up
, is another large concept record which consists of one 68 minute-long piece (although split into four sections solely for CD navigation), a tightly organized, but not
through-composed piece based on a pair of three-note kernels: The opening B, A#, F# and the derived B, A, F#. The reception of
The Way Up
was consistent, with standing ovations in each of the almost 90 concerts during the world tour 2005. On
The Way Up
, harmonica player
Grégoire Maret from Switzerland was introduced as a new group member, while
Richard Bona contributed only as a guest musician.
During the world tour Brazilian multi-instrumentalist Nando Lauria completed the line-up of the PMG.
The Way Up
was released through
Nonesuch Records and all of Metheny's Geffen and Warner Brothers back catalogue is to be released on the label. Core members of the group are leader and founder, guitarist Pat Metheny,
Lyle Mays (piano, keyboards) and
Steve Rodby (double and electric bass) who joined in 1980. Drummer
Paul Wertico replaced Dan Gottlieb in 1983 and continued to play with the group for more than 18 years, until he was replaced by
Antonio Sanchez, currently also a member of The Pat Metheny Trio.
The current Pat Metheny Group members are Pat Metheny (guitars),
Lyle Mays (piano and keyboards),
Steve Rodby (double bass, electric bass),
Antonio Sanchez (drums),
Cuong Vu (trumpet). Other musicians that have been hired regularly for Metheny Group tours are: the late
Mark Ledford (vocals, trumpet, guitar);
David Blamires (vocals, miscellaneous instruments); Armando Marçal (percussion);
Pedro Aznar (vocals, guitar, percussion);
Richard Bona (vocals, guitar, bass, and percussion). On the most recent tour to promote the record "The Way Up",
Grégoire Maret (harmonica, percussion, vocals) and Nando Lauria (guitar, percussion, vocals) joined the Group. Pat Metheny has collected 17
Grammy Awards, and of them, as part of The Pat Metheny Group, 10 of those awards were consecutive.
Side projects
When working outside of the confines of the PMG, Metheny has shown different sides to his musical personality. Working with established jazz figures such as
Ornette Coleman,
Chick Corea,
Michael Brecker,
Joshua Redman,
Charlie Haden,
Jim Hall,
Dave Holland,
Christian McBride, David Sanchez and
Roy Haynes, he has made records that have found favor with jazz critics that were disparaging of the "pastoral" or "light rock" aspects of his work with the PMG. Projects like the collaboration with
Derek Bailey and
Zero Tolerance for Silence
have confounded critics who saw Metheny as following a path of increasing blandness with the PMG. Metheny's latest side projects teams him with
Brad Mehldau and his Trio. In 2006, Metheny appeared as a sideman on Brecker's last album,
Pilgrimage.
Guitar contributions
thumbContinuing the tradition of jazz guitarists borrowing tones and techniques from their rock counterparts, Metheny has made alterations to the jazz guitar tone palette.
Twelve-string electric
Prior to Metheny,
Pat Martino had used the electric
twelve-string guitar on a studio album,
Desperado
, and
John McLaughlin had used a double-neck electric guitar with the
Mahavishnu Orchestra. (
Ralph Towner had introduced the acoustic twelve-string to jazz. ) Metheny introduced alternate 12-string tunings to jazz; these can be heard on tunes such as "Sirabhorn" (from
Bright Size Life
) and San Lorenzo (from
Pat Metheny Group
and
Travels
).
Six-string electric
Metheny's tone, which has evolved over the years, involves using the natural full-frequency response of his hollow-body guitar, combined with high-midrange settings on his amplifier to create a smooth, sustaining lead sound that is virtually devoid of piercing treble yet is able to cut through a dense mix. By using
digital signal processing that involves digital delay and reverb, he has created a big, rich, and resonant instrumental voice.
Guitar synthesizer
Metheny was also one of the first jazz guitarists to make heavy use of the
Roland GR300
Guitar Synthesizer. While
John Abercrombie and
Bill Frisell also used it heavily in the 1980s, Metheny is the only one of the three who still uses the instrument on a regular basis. Unlike many guitar synth users, Metheny limits himself to a very small number of sounds; in interviews, he has argued that each of the timbres achievable through guitar synthesis should be treated as a separate instrument, and that he has tried to master each of these "instruments" instead of using it for incidental color.
42-string Pikasso guitar
Metheny plays a
custom-made Pikasso I created by Canadian
luthier Linda Manzer on "Into the Dream" and on the albums
Quartet
,
Imaginary Day
,
Jim Hall & Pat Metheny
,
Trio->Live
, and the
Speaking of Now Live
and
Imaginary Day
DVDs. Metheny has also used the guitar in his guest appearances on other artist's albums.
Manzer has also made many acoustic guitars for Metheny, including a mini guitar, an acoustic sitar guitar, and also the
baritone guitar, which Metheny used for the recording of
One Quiet Night
. His latest use of the Pikasso is found on the album
Metheny Mehldau Quartet
, his second collaboration with pianist
Brad Mehldau and his trio sidemen
Larry Grenadier and
Jeff Ballard; the Pikasso is featured on Metheny's impressionistic composition "The Sound of Water."
Influences
As a guitarist, Metheny cites
Wes Montgomery as his biggest early influence. In the liner notes on the 2-disc Montgomery compilation "Impressions: the Verve Jazz Sides," Metheny is quoted as saying, "(Smokin' at the Half Note) is the absolute greatest jazz-guitar album ever made. It is also the record that taught me how to play." His playing (as well as his tone) also show significant influence by
Jim Hall,
Joe Diorio,
Kenny Burrell,
Joe Pass, and other classic jazz players. Metheny has often been quoted saying that he is as likely to name non-guitarists as significant stylistic influences as fellow guitar players, giving as examples players like Clifford Brown and John Coltrane. He has paid significant attention to the evolution of guitar playing across genres, however, and is familiar with the playing of notables from the likes of rocker
Eddie Van Halen to
Windham Hill artist
Leo Kottke.
In particular, he has been influenced by
Brazilian music--both the European-influenced jazz sound of the
bossa nova and the intensely polyrhythmic Afro-Brazilian sounds of the country's northeast. Metheny has lived in
Brazil and performed with several local musicians such as
Milton Nascimento and
Toninho Horta. He is also a fan of several
pop music artists, including
The Beatles;
James Taylor, after whom he named the song "James" on "Offramp";
Bruce Hornsby; and
Joni Mitchell, with whom he performed on her
Shadows and Light tour.
Metheny has also named
Ornette Coleman as a musical influence. He has recorded Coleman compositions on a number of his records (starting with a medley of "Round Trip" and "Broadway Blues" on his debut
Bright Size Life
); worked extensively with Coleman collaborators such as
Charlie Haden,
Dewey Redman, and
Billy Higgins; and has even made a record,
Song X
, with Coleman.
The Metheny Brothers
Pat took part in recording some of the CDs by his elder brother, trumpeter
Mike Metheny, a talented jazz musician and a trumpet player based in Kansas City, Missouri, among them
Day In - Night Out
(1986) and more recently
Close Enough for Love
(2001).
[2]
Discography
References
- Allmusic.com article on Metheny
- [1]