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, latin jazz, and jazz fusion.[2] Metheny has three gold albums and 20 Grammy Awards[3][4] and is the only person to win Grammys in 10 categories. He is the younger brother of jazz flugelhornistMike Metheny.
Biography
Early years and education
Metheny was born in Lee's Summit, Missouri. His father Dave played trumpet, his mother Lois sang, and his maternal grandfather Delmar was a professional trumpeter.[5][6] Metheny's first instrument was trumpet, which he was taught by his brother, Mike. His brother, father, and grandfather played trios together at home. His parents were fans of Glenn Miller and swing music. They took Metheny to concerts to hear Clark Terry and Doc Severinsen, but they had little respect for guitar. Metheny's interest in guitar increased around 1964 when he saw The Beatles perform on TV. For his 12th birthday, his parents allowed him to buy a guitar, which was a Gibson ES-140 3/4.[7]
Metheny's life changed after hearing the album Four & More by Miles Davis. Soon after, he was captivated by Wes Montgomery's album Smokin' at the Half Note which was released in 1965. He cites the Beatles, Miles Davis, and Wes Montgomery as having the biggest impact on his music.[7]
When he was 15, he won a scholarship from Down Beat magazine to a one-week jazz camp where he was mentored by guitarist Attila Zoller, who then invited Metheny to New York City to see guitarist Jim Hall and bassist Ron Carter.[8]
While playing at a club in Kansas City, he was approached by Bill Lee, a dean at the University of Miami, and offered a scholarship. After less than a week at college, Metheny realized that playing guitar all day during his teens had left him unprepared for classes. He admitted this to Lee, who offered him a job to teach instead with the rank of Professor, as the school had recently introduced electric guitar as a course of study.[7]
Pat Metheny at KJAZ radio, Alameda CA December 1980
In 1974 he appeared on an album unofficially titled Jaco with pianist Paul Bley, bassist Jaco Pastorius, and drummer Bruce Ditmas for Carol Goss's Improvising Artists label. But he was unaware that he was being recorded. During the next year, he joined Gary Burton's band with guitarist Mick Goodrick.
Metheny released his debut album, Bright Size Life (ECM, 1976) with Jaco Pastorius on bass guitar and Bob Moses on drums. His next album, Watercolors (ECM, 1977), was the first time he recorded with pianist Lyle Mays, who became his most frequent collaborator. The album also featured Danny Gottlieb, who became the drummer for the first version of the Pat Metheny Group.[10] With Metheny, Mays, and Gottlieb, the fourth member was bassist Mark Egan when the album Pat Metheny Group (ECM, 1978) was released.
When Pat Metheny Group (ECM, 1978) was released, the Group was a quartet comprising, besides Metheny, Danny Gottlieb on drums, Mark Egan on bass, and Lyle Mays on piano, autoharp and synthesizer. All but Egan had played on Metheny's album Watercolors (ECM, 1977), recorded a year before the first Group album.[7]
The second Group album, American Garage (ECM, 1979), reached number 1 on the Billboard Jazz chart and crossed over onto the pop charts. From 1982 to 1985, the Pat Metheny Group released Offramp (ECM, 1982), a live album, Travels (ECM, 1983), First Circle (ECM, 1984), and The Falcon and the Snowman (EMI, 1985), a soundtrack album for the movie of the same name in which they collaborated on the single "This Is Not America" with David Bowie. The song reached number 14 in the British Top 40 in 1985 and number 32 in the U.S.[11]
Offramp marked the first appearance of bassist Steve Rodby (replacing Egan) and a Brazilian guest artist, Nana Vasconcelos, on percussion and wordless vocals. On First Circle, Argentinian singer and multi-instrumentalist Pedro Aznar joined the group as drummer Paul Wertico replaced Gottlieb. Both Rodby and Wertico were members of the Simon and Bard Group at the time and had played in Simon-Bard in Chicago before joining Metheny.[citation needed]
First Circle was Metheny's last album with ECM; he had been a key artist for the label but left following disagreements with the label's founder, Manfred Eicher.[12]
During this period the Steppenwolf Theater Company of Chicago featured compositions by Metheny and Mays for their production of Lyle Kessler's play Orphans, where it has remained special optional music for all productions of the play around the world since.[13]
Metheny then again delved into solo and band projects, and four years went by before the release of the next Group record, a live album titled The Road to You (Geffen, 1993), which featured tracks from the two Geffen studio albums among new tunes. The group integrated new instrumentation and technologies into its work, notably Mays' use of synthesizers.
Metheny and Mays themselves refer [citation needed] to the next three Pat Metheny Group releases as a triptych: We Live Here (Geffen, 1995), Quartet (Geffen, 1996), and Imaginary Day (Warner Bros., 1997). Moving away from the Latin style which had dominated the releases of the previous ten years, these albums included experiments with sequenced synthetic drums on one track, free-form improvisation on acoustic instruments, and symphonic signatures, blues, and sonata schemes.[citation needed]
The Way Up (Nonesuch, 2005) consists of one 68-minute-long piece (split into four sections for CD navigation) based on a pair of three-note kernels: The opening B, A#, F# and the derived B, A, F#. On The Way Up, harmonica player Grégoire Maret from Switzerland was introduced as a new group member, while Bona contributed as a guest musician.
Side projects
Outside the Group, Metheny has shown different sides of his musical personality. He made the album Orchestrion (Nonesuch, 2010) with elaborate, custom mechanical instruments, allowing one person to compose and perform as a one-person orchestra. By contrast, his album Secret Story (Geffen, 1992) used orchestral arrangements found more often in movie soundtracks, such as his own The Falcon and the Snowman (EMI, 1985) and A Map of the World (Warner Bros., 1999). His solo acoustic guitar albums include New Chautauqua (ECM, 1979), One Quiet Night (Warner Bros., 2003), and What's It All About (Nonesuch, 2011). He explored the fringes of the avant-garde on Zero Tolerance for Silence (Geffen, 1994). This, too, was an album of solo guitar, but it was electric guitar, and to many fans and critics it was simply noise. Metheny had ventured into the avant-garde before on 80/81 (ECM, 1980), Song X (Geffen, 1986) with Ornette Coleman, and The Sign of Four with Derek Bailey (Knitting Factory Works, 1997).
He recorded on albums by his older brother, Mike Metheny, a jazz trumpeter, among them Day In – Night Out (1986) and Close Enough for Love (2001).[14][15]
In 2012, he formed the Unity Band with Antonio Sánchez on drums, Ben Williams on bass and Chris Potter on saxophone. This ensemble toured Europe and the U.S. during the latter half of the year. In 2013, as an extension of the Unity Band project, Metheny announced the formation of the Pat Metheny Unity Group, with the addition of the Italian multi-instrumentalist Giulio Carmassi.
Influences
As a young guitarist, Metheny tried to sound like Wes Montgomery, but when he was 14 or 15, he decided it was disrespectful to imitate him.[17] 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."
Ornette Coleman's 1968 album New York Is Now! inspired Metheny to find his own direction.[18] He has recorded Coleman's compositions on a number of albums, starting with a medley of "Round Trip" and "Broadway Blues" on his debut album, Bright Size Life (1976). He worked extensively with Coleman's collaborators, such as Charlie Haden, Dewey Redman, and Billy Higgins, and he recorded the album Song X (1986) with Coleman and toured with him.
Metheny made three albums on ECM with Brazilian vocalist and percussionist Naná Vasconcelos. He lived in Brazil from the late 1980s to the early 1990s and performed with several local musicians, such as Milton Nascimento and Toninho Horta. He played with Antônio Carlos Jobim as a tribute, in a live performance in Carnegie Hall Salutes The Jazz Masters: Verve 50th Anniversary.
Two of Metheny's albums, The Way Up (2005) and Orchestrion (2010), show the influence of American minimalist composer Steve Reich and use similar rhythmic figures structured around pulse. Metheny recorded Reich's composition Electric Counterpoint on Reich's album Different Trains (Nonesuch, 1987).
Metheny plays a custom-made 42-string Pikasso I created by Canadian luthier Linda Manzer. He plays it on "Into the Dream" and on the albums Quartet (1996), Imaginary Day (1997), Jim Hall & Pat Metheny (1999), Trio → Live (Warner Bros., 2000), and the Speaking of Now Live and Imaginary Day Live DVDs. Metheny has used the guitar in his guest appearances on other artists' albums. He used the Pikasso on Metheny/Mehldau Quartet (Nonesuch, 2007), his second collaboration with pianist Brad Mehldau and his trio sidemen Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard; the Pikasso is featured on Metheny's composition "The Sound of Water". Manzer has made many acoustic guitars for Metheny, including a mini guitar, an acoustic sitar guitar, and the baritone guitar, which Metheny used for the recording of One Quiet Night (2003).
Guitar synthesizer
Metheny with the guitar synthesizer
Metheny was one of the first jazz guitarists to use the Roland GR-300Guitar Synthesizer. He commented, "you have to stop thinking about it as a guitar, because it no longer is a guitar." He approaches it as if he were a horn player, and he prefers the "high trumpet" sound of the instrument.[20] One of the "patches" that he has often used is on Roland's JV-80 "Vintage Synth" expansion card, titled "Pat's GR-300".[citation needed]. In addition to the Roland, he uses a Synclavier controller.[20]
Six-string and twelve-string electric
Metheny was an early proponent of the twelve-string guitar in jazz. During his 1975 tour with the Gary Burton "Quartet" (five people, including Metheny), he primarily played electric twelve-string guitar against the six-string work of resident guitarist Mick Goodrick.[21]
Metheny used a twelve-string guitar on his debut album, Bright Size Life (1976), including alternate tuning on "Sirabhorn", and on later albums ("San Lorenzo", from Pat Metheny Group and Travels).[citation needed]
Use of hollow-body electric guitars
Metheny with his Ibanez PM signature model
At the age of 12, Metheny bought a natural finish Gibson ES-175 that he played throughout his early career, until it was retired in 1995.[23] After his first tour of Japan in 1978, he began an association with Ibanez guitars, who have since produced a range of PM signature models.[24]
Personal life
Pat Metheny lives in New York City with his wife, Latifa (née Azhar) and three children. Latifa has been credited for album photography.[25][26][27] Metheny was in a relationship with Sônia Braga.[28]
Awards and honors
Only artist to win Grammy Awards in ten different categories[29]
Antonio Sánchez is a Mexican-American drummer and composer. He is best known for his work with jazz guitarist Pat Metheny and as a composer of the film score for the 2014 film Birdman. The score earned him a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score and BAFTA Award for Best Film Music; he won a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Score, and the Satellite Award for Best Original Score.
Lyle David Mays was an American jazz pianist, composer, and member of the Pat Metheny Group. Metheny and Mays composed and arranged nearly all of the group's music, for which Mays won eleven Grammy Awards.
Steve Rodby is an American jazz bassist and producer known for his time with the Pat Metheny Group.
The Pat Metheny Group was an American jazz band founded in 1977. The core members of the group were guitarist, composer and bandleader Pat Metheny; and keyboardist and composer Lyle Mays, who was in the group at its inception. Other long-standing members included bassist and producer Steve Rodby, from 1981 to 2010, and drummer Antonio Sanchez, from 2002 to 2010. Vocalist Pedro Aznar and drummer Paul Wertico were also long-time members. In addition to a core quartet, the group was often joined by a variety of other instrumentalists expanding the size to six or eight musicians.
Joshua Redman is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. He is the son of jazz saxophonist Dewey Redman (1931–2006).
Marc Alan Johnson is an American jazz bass player, composer and band leader. Johnson was born in Nebraska and grew up in Texas. He is married to the Brazilian jazz pianist and singer Eliane Elias.
Larry Grenadier is an American jazz double bassist.
Offramp is the third album by the Pat Metheny Group, released in 1982. It won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance. It contains the popular ballad "Are You Going with Me?".
Bradford Alexander Mehldau is an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger.
Juvenal de Holanda Vasconcelos, known as Naná Vasconcelos, was a Brazilian percussionist, vocalist and berimbau player, notable for his work as a solo artist on over two dozen albums, and as a backing musician with Pat Metheny, Don Cherry, Björk, Jan Garbarek, Egberto Gismonti, Gato Barbieri, and Milton Nascimento.
Metheny Mehldau is a jazz album released in 2006 by Nonesuch Records. Most of the album is a duet between guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Brad Mehldau. On two songs, they are accompanied by drummer Jeff Ballard and bassist Larry Grenadier.
This is a discography of works by Pat Metheny.
Metheny Mehldau Quartet is a jazz album by guitarist Pat Metheny and pianist Brad Mehldau, released in 2007 by Nonesuch Records. It features bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard.
In the 1990s in jazz, jazz rap continued progressing from the late 1980s and early 1990s, and incorporated jazz influence into hip hop. In 1988, Gang Starr released the debut single "Words I Manifest", sampling Dizzy Gillespie's 1962 "A Night in Tunisia", and Stetsasonic released "Talkin' All That Jazz", sampling Lonnie Liston Smith. Gang Starr's debut LP, No More Mr. Nice Guy, and their track "Jazz Thing" for the soundtrack of Mo' Better Blues, sampling Charlie Parker and Ramsey Lewis. Gang Starr also collaborated with Branford Marsalis and Terence Blanchard. Groups making up the collective known as the Native Tongues Posse tended towards jazzy releases; these include the Jungle Brothers' debut Straight Out the Jungle and A Tribe Called Quest's People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm and The Low End Theory.
Jorge "Jordi" Rossy is a jazz drummer, pianist and vibraphonist.
Orchestrion is a studio album by jazz guitarist Pat Metheny that was released by Nonesuch Records on January 26, 2010.
The Orchestrion Project is an album by American guitarist Pat Metheny released as a double CD in early 2013 on the Nonesuch label following the release of a concert video with the same name in 2012. The album was recorded on tour following Orchestrion, Metheny's album from 2010 which used orchestrionic instruments.
In the 2010s in jazz, well-established jazz musicians, such as Wayne Shorter, John Scofield, Jan Garbarek, Pat Metheny, Jon Balke, Brad Mehldau, Olga Konkova, Ulf Wakenius, Christian McBride, Per Mathisen, and Renaud Garcia Fons, continued to perform and record. In the 21st century, a number of young musicians emerged, including Norwegian pianists Tord Gustavsen and Helge Lien, guitarist David Aleksander Sjølie, vibraphonist Andreas Mjøs, trumpeters Mathias Eick and Hayden Powell, saxophonists Marius Neset, Frøy Aagre, and Mette Henriette, and bassist Ellen Andrea Wang.
The Unity Sessions is an album by American jazz guitarist Pat Metheny and his Unity Band: saxophonist Chris Potter, bassist Ben Williams, keyboardist Giulio Carmassi and drummer Antonio Sánchez. A live album in a studio setting, it was recorded with a camera crew in a black box theatre without an audience. The recording was released on DVD and Blu-Ray disc in 2015, then as a double CD in 2016.
Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny is a studio album by Vietnamese jazz trumpeter Cuong Vu and American jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, with additional musicians Stomu Takeishi on fretless five-string bass guitar, and Ted Poor on drums. The album was released on May 6, 2016 via Nonesuch label.
1 2 3 4 5 Niles, Richard (2009). The Pat Metheny Interviews: The Inner Workings of His Creativity Revealed. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Books. pp.4–23. ISBN978-1-4234-7469-2.
1 2 Taylor, B. Kimberly (1999). "Pat Metheny 2002". Encyclopedia.com. HighBeam Research, Inc. Retrieved April 4, 2010.
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