Pat Metheny as a Person?

[pingu]

i'm fanatical about jazz - in particular about be-bop - and in particular about charlie parker and bud powell - i am also crazy about sonny rollins early-ish work and almost all of bill evans.

and i have never been able to get into pm at all. i positively dislike his folksy - open - unstructured - aimless melodic sense - his over-lush arrangements - and his almost complete lack of swing (even in the records with holland and haynes)

so i am totally stumped about the amount of jazz-love there is for him

i wonder how many of the people who adore him are into be-bop at all. i suspect they come to his music through rock or fusion rather jazz.

i have listened to e.g. 'question and answer' a lot (though i've never really liked anything but the drumming). but can someone recommend an album that represents his signature style rather than him doing a 'straight-ahead' album? obviously i don't hold out much hope of coming to like his stuff - but i'm genuinely confused as things stand.

I do like Metheny's jazz stuff and Bop too

do you like Jim Hall ? he's the link i think

[John A.]

I met Metheny once, riding the subway in NYC. I approached him and said something dumb/cliched along the lines of "hey, aren't you ...?" At first he seemed a bit annoyed at having his thoughts intruded on, so I didn't push the conversation, then he re-started it. We talked about what he was up to (this was when he was working with Kenny Garrett). He was on his way to soundcheck a gig he was playing that night at a club with Garrett, which I wound up going to. Basically, a normal friendly conversation between strangers discovering a common interest. I know a couple of people who have run into him in NYC, and had similar experiences. From a 10-minute interaction on a train I don't think I gained a whole lot of insight into his personality. But what you see in videos/interviews seems to be pretty much what he is -- smart, smiling, open, genuinely responsive too and interested in other people, very serious about his art. The fact that he was on the subway at all speaks to him being a pretty much normal human being not caught up in his own celebrity. Miles lived in the same neighborhood that Metheny lives in now, and he drove a Ferrari everywhere (or so he claimed in his memoir).

John

[JazzinNY]

You can't convince someone to like a musician they just don't. Metheny isn't so much a jazz musician as a fusion guy, although he dislikes the term. For a long time, he was my favorite musician. Late 80's, early 90's, his band with Nana Vasconcelos, he put together some of the most perfect concerts I've every witnessed. Those peak albums, First Circle, Letter from Home etc.

Nowadays I prefer Pat Martino and Grant Green, that more traditional, darker, bluesier sound. Yet I still respect Metheny enormously for his total mastery over the guitar.

[Cunamara]

Well, there is the Pat Metheny of the Pat Metheny Group and there is the Pat Metheny of his various trios and such outfits. The latter are usually more focused on straight ahead jazz than the PMG, which tends to be all original music composed by Metheny. As a matter of taste I dislike most of the PMG recordings that seem to be quite well-liked and admired like "Secret Story;" basically I like the PMG up to Offramp and before and I don't like most of the PMG stuff after that. To me those are not the peak PMG albums and I really don't know why, given how popular they are with many people who have really good ears. I much prefer American Garage, the Pat Metheny Group, etc. Oddly enough, Bright Size Life is not really one of my favorite Metheny recordings, either.

I first saw Pat with PMG at Luther College in Decorah IA. I convinced some Deadhead friends to drive the 90 minutes or so to see them. This was the tour immediately after "As Falls Witchita..." came out, IIRC. I was dazzled and delighted by the music and the interaction between the musicians, especially Pat and Lyle Mays. I saw him a few more times in Minneapolis with PMG and- despite what I wrote above- throughly enjoyed them. The last time was on the "The Way Up" tour.

I tend to really like his trio recordings. I think what I prefer about them to much of the PMG catalog is that the trios tend to be more swinging and the PMG stuff is often more even 8ths/Brazilian/world music-y/etc. I prefer the swing groove with jazz for some reason (because I am an old fuddy duddy, I expect).

All this being said, Pat has few peers on guitar. The depth of his knowledge of music, which often comes out in interviews, is amazing- not just how music works but how it relates to society. His ability to articulate his thoughts on music is impressive, too.

[Groyniad]

I do like Metheny's jazz stuff and Bop too

do you like Jim Hall ? he's the link i think

yes indeed - i adore jim hall - i've got pretty much all his stuff. but i prefer the stuff with jimmy giuffre at the beginning than the later stuff. i love up to and including 'subsequently' and then i get less keen.

and i can't hear the link at all

i think 'harmonic vocabulary' is overemphasized - it means nothing without the time-feel

its all about time it seems to me - jh swings and pm (and many like him) don't

but i did like the first tune on BSL

thanks again

[lawson-stone]

I tend to separate entertainers/performers from the human beings they actually are. I mean, it's hard to think of many jazz heroes without saying, "Oh yeah, Miles did have that thinb about beating up his girlfriends…" or some such. funny how we crack on Cosby for his behavior but just choose not to talk about some of the abominable actions of our jazz, bop and post-bop heroes.

I try to just listen to the music and not assume that people making great art are necessarily great people. But we sort of have our favorite sins and crimes to condemn while letting others off with a pass.

Reminds me of the line in Thornton Wilder's Our Town: "The closer you get to the human race, there's layers and layers of nonsense."

[John A.]

i'm fanatical about jazz - in particular about be-bop - and in particular about charlie parker and bud powell - i am also crazy about sonny rollins early-ish work and almost all of bill evans.

and i have never been able to get into pm at all. i positively dislike his folksy - open - unstructured - aimless melodic sense - his over-lush arrangements - and his almost complete lack of swing (even in the records with holland and haynes)

so i am totally stumped about the amount of jazz-love there is for him

i wonder how many of the people who adore him are into be-bop at all. i suspect they come to his music through rock or fusion rather jazz.

i have listened to e.g. 'question and answer' a lot (though i've never really liked anything but the drumming). but can someone recommend an album that represents his signature style rather than him doing a 'straight-ahead' album? obviously i don't hold out much hope of coming to like his stuff - but i'm genuinely confused as things stand.

A lot of what you seem to dislike sounds more like Lyle Mays's aesthetic in the Pat Metheny Group than Metheny's (Mays is more the lush arrangement guy). That said, I find "Still Life Talking" to be a real high-water mark for PMG. I've also been listening to We Live Here (PMG's take on "acid jazz"), Imaginary Day, and Marc Johnson's Sound of Summer Running (with Bill Frisell, who I'm guessing you probably don't much care for either).

Enjoy these (or not)

John A.

[jazzguy100]

yes indeed - i adore jim hall - i've got pretty much all his stuff. but i prefer the stuff with jimmy giuffre at the beginning than the later stuff. i love up to and including 'subsequently' and then i get less keen.

and i can't hear the link at all

i think 'harmonic vocabulary' is overemphasized - it means nothing without the time-feel

its all about time it seems to me - jh swings and pm (and many like him) don't

but i did like the first tune on BSL

thanks again

Go listen again, metheny has great time. he swings when he wants to. the link in metheny to hall is phrasing. where do you think pat got his slippery slurring from? and to me metheny grooves way more than hall

[John A.]

Well, there is the Pat Metheny of the Pat Metheny Group and there is the Pat Metheny of his various trios and such outfits. The latter are usually more focused on straight ahead jazz than the PMG, which tends to be all original music composed by Metheny. As a matter of taste I dislike most of the PMG recordings that seem to be quite well-liked and admired like "Secret Story;" .....

Secret Story is actually credited as a Pat Metheny album, not PMG. Still Life Talking, Letter From Home and Secret Story have always struck me as kind of a suite, but I don't think Metheny himself sees it that way.

John

[mr. beaumont]

Pat Metheny doesn't swing?

[destinytot]

i'm fanatical about jazz - in particular about be-bop - and in particular about charlie parker and bud powell - i am also crazy about sonny rollins early-ish work and almost all of bill evans.

and i have never been able to get into pm at all. i positively dislike his folksy - open - unstructured - aimless melodic sense - his over-lush arrangements - and his almost complete lack of swing (even in the records with holland and haynes)

so i am totally stumped about the amount of jazz-love there is for him

i wonder how many of the people who adore him are into be-bop at all. i suspect they come to his music through rock or fusion rather jazz.

i have listened to e.g. 'question and answer' a lot (though i've never really liked anything but the drumming). but can someone recommend an album that represents his signature style rather than him doing a 'straight-ahead' album? obviously i don't hold out much hope of coming to like his stuff - but i'm genuinely confused as things stand.

I don't 'adore' him, but I've liked and admired Pat Metheny since (the album entitled) '80/'81 - I never tire of Every Day I Thank You. I like this album a lot, too:

[55bar]

Metheny has a PHENOMENAL sense of time-feel, one of my favourite albums is the duo with Charlie haden "beyond the Missouri sky"

Also if you can find it listen to the 3 lessons kicking around online, where he plays with a drum machine talking about time feel.

[Groyniad]

I tend to separate entertainers/performers from the human beings they actually are. I mean, it's hard to think of many jazz heroes without saying, "Oh yeah, Miles did have that thinb about beating up his girlfriends…" or some such. funny how we crack on Cosby for his behavior but just choose not to talk about some of the abominable actions of our jazz, bop and post-bop heroes.

I try to just listen to the music and not assume that people making great art are necessarily great people. But we sort of have our favorite sins and crimes to condemn while letting others off with a pass.

Reminds me of the line in Thornton Wilder's Our Town: "The closer you get to the human race, there's layers and layers of nonsense."

you want to try being nuts about heidegger - that's a tough gig

[destinytot]

you want to try being nuts about heidegger - that's a tough gig

I was thinking of Heidegger after reading Bobalou's post, which resonated with me. ("ln Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire hurricanes hardly ever happen...") Heidegger's ideas help in a racialised world.

[jazzguy100]

gotta seperate the good performer from the good person. I dig boxing and some of my favorite boxers were horrible people, doesn't mean anything i like em for their boxing skills. if i wanted to like someone for who they are then id idolize the pope or something.

[Lionelsax]

Ask Kenny G !

[Boston Joe]

People are people, and that's true whether you play guitar, or design software, or work in a factory. I have a lot of respect for Pat as a musician (The Way Up has been my favorite piece of music for the past few years), but I know pretty much nothing about him as a person, and I'm OK with that. I'd rather hear the music and respond to it as music than cloud my response with irrelevant knowledge about the person behind it. (That said, I did enjoy his Kenny G. rant immensely - though I felt a little guilty about how much I enjoyed it. Schadenfreude is not one of my more honorable tendencies, and I don't like myself when I indulge in it.)

Case in point: Miles Davis. Incredible, sublime music, but having read several biographies of him (including his own), I don't think I would have liked him very much if I'd met him. And while I still love his music, now whenever I listen to it, I can't help but have my reaction to be be colored by what I know about him.

[yebdox]

I've met Pat a couple of times, always struck me as very thoughtful, uncompromising. He won't let you put words in his mouth, he has very precise ideas about his music, music in general, his heroes, the work involved, etc.

A conversation with him, from my limited experience is never allowed to fall into lax niceties and chit chat, at least not very far. I remember reading that he doesn't drink (and maybe never has), runs to stay in shape, no matter where in the world he is, and takes responsibility for the production of his music and the support of the players he enlists, thus does not expose himself to personal health risks.

If you think about his life, he has followed a very different path from most of us, I imagine.... barely graduating high school, moving to florida and then boston at a young age, playing with world class musicians and then leading his own band at an age when most of us were still trying to figure things out. Then touring by van for 10 years or more, til he finally had enough draw to afford an easier life.

I think he took some time to live in Brazil for a year, became friends with Toninho Horta, incorporated some of that feel, besides the influence of playing all over the world for 40 years.

He married a beautiful woman who is, I believe, a Morrocan photographer, they have 3 kids, he has family still in Missouri, was best friends with Charlie Haden, who had roots in midwestern gospel and sensibilities, so he's likely never been far from his midwestern roots, either.

I think his writing is amazing, he has monster chops and how many players can you think of who have a truly unique voice on their instrument, without a hint of their heroes voices showing through?

He's kind of an alien to me, in terms of his dedication and talent. And there's no sign of letting up, it just gets bigger. I mean, for crying out loud, he built his own Orchestrion! He's played with nearly every important voice in modern jazz alive at the same time!

Truly an original, with very few people like him in any field or discipline. I'm ashamed I haven't done more with my own life, and I've done pretty well. Metheny flat out humbles me.