{"id":1467,"date":"2010-09-12T17:48:07","date_gmt":"2010-09-13T00:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=1467"},"modified":"2010-09-12T17:48:07","modified_gmt":"2010-09-13T00:48:07","slug":"pat-metheny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2010\/09\/pat-metheny\/","title":{"rendered":"Pat Metheny"},"content":{"rendered":"

PAT METHENY<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The jazz guitarist\u2019s new instrument might look funny\u2014but it\u2019s no joke<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>No other jazz guitarist of the past four decades has done as much as Pat Metheny to broaden the definition of the instrument and expand its possibilities. Metheny reached out to listeners outside of the jazz mainstream with early releases like 1975\u2019s Bright Size Life<\/em> and 1980\u2019s As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls<\/em>, and he\u2019s maintained a huge audience ever since. Along the way he\u2019s racked up three gold records and literally hundreds of awards, including 17 Grammys in 10 different categories.<\/p>\n

But despite his enormous worldwide popularity, Metheny has been anything but cautious in his career. In addition to his work with the ever-reliable Pat Metheny Group, he has recorded and performed in numerous configurations ranging from solo to quartet and beyond. Metheny\u2019s collaborations have crossed all over the musical map, from jazz legends Herbie Hancock, Ornette Coleman and Gary Burton to pop icons Joni Mitchell, David Bowie and Brazilian vocalist Milton Nascimento.<\/p>\n

With his newest release, Orchestrion<\/em>, Metheny heads in yet another new directiotn. Although technically a solo album, Orchestrion<\/em> employs a complex technology based on ideas that originated with the player piano more than a century ago to allow Metheny to operate as a one-man band in real time. He triggers the keyboard, drum and percussion parts all from his guitar, while of course also overlaying his distinctive guitar licks. \u201cWhat I\u2019m doing here is using solenoid technology,\u201d he explains, \u201cwhich is basically electromagnets, where I can control dynamics. I have worked hard on that aspect, to make sure that things are always rising and falling and breathing.\u201d<\/p>\n

It may sound like a novelty on paper, but in practice it\u2019s anything but\u2014this is some of Metheny\u2019s most compositionally detailed work to date. Speaking from Brooklyn, where he\u2019s been busily working out just how to adapt this new music to a concert setting, Pat Metheny discussed his latest work and other aspects of his lengthy, legendary career.<\/p>\n

How does the technology you\u2019re using to create Orchestrion <\/em>differ from conventional synthesizer or MIDI technology?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s actual instruments in the actual room actually doing stuff. We\u2019re not talking about samples. We\u2019re not talking about synthesizers. We\u2019re talking about dozens and dozens of moving parts that are hitting, beating, plucking, smacking, shaking and doing everything else. As much as I\u2019ve been involved in electricity, I have to say I\u2019ve never completely loved the sound of electric stuff. Electric guitar is one instrument going into one speaker, and that\u2019s fine. When you start mixing sound in a couple of speakers, it\u2019s still electric sound in a speaker. As great as synths have become, which is pretty great, it\u2019s still stuff coming out of speakers. With this, you walk in the room and it\u2019s alive. It\u2019s like the difference between processed food and organic. Air is moving, things are mixing in the air, and it\u2019s never predictable. Every time a stick hits a cymbal it\u2019s a little bit different. Almost everyone\u2019s first reaction when they see this is to start laughing because it is kind of funny. But the music is really hardcore. Among the 30-odd records I\u2019ve done, this is probably the most densely compositional of them all. The fun part of it for me was that this challenge\u2014because it has been this incredible self-imposed challenge\u2014caused me to get to a level of compositional detail. I had to function above and beyond normal, musically, because it is such a weird project.<\/p>\n

Did you compose with the technology in mind or did you take compositions you already had and apply them <\/strong>to the technology?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was only when the instruments started coming in\u2014I commissioned five inventors to build these instruments for me\u2014that I could really figure out what they were good at, what they could and couldn\u2019t do. I had written a bunch of music before that, but I had to throw it all out; none of it worked. So I composed for this, quote-unquote band, as I became familiar with it and figured out its strengths. I had to make a choice at a certain point: What kind of record am I going<\/p>\n

to make? I chose to make a very densely compositional record that has many references to my general world: harmony, melody, rhythm, etc. I don\u2019t think anybody from note one is going to make any mistake about whose record this is.<\/p>\n

With this music you are responding to yourself, rather than to other musicians. How difficult is it to be the soloist and the band simultaneously?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oddly, this is probably the most personal record I\u2019ve ever done. It\u2019s strange because it is everything filtered through my consciousness, especially melodically. I spent a lot of time talking to drummers and thinking about drums, and I used to play a lot of bass gigs and I usually write everything on the keyboard anyway. So those worlds are very familiar to me. I also feel it\u2019s important to say that this is not a replacement for anything. I\u2019ve been lucky to play with the greatest musicians in the world, and will continue to.<\/p>\n

Why do you think people who don\u2019t normally listen to much jazz consider you their favorite guitarist? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I have no idea. I think some of it is that I\u2019ve been out there for nearly 40 years playing more gigs than just about anybody you could name. And there was that period of 10 or 15 years from the time I started my band through the early \u201990s that we had a level of success that was out of jazz proportion. We were selling hundreds of thousands of records, millions of records. Once jazz became too PBS and rock guys no longer looked to jazz for inspiration, things changed. That\u2019s a sad commentary on what the revisionist, conservative movement in jazz has brought. I think the best part of jazz is where jazz guys have been revolutionaries. There\u2019s never been a successful conservative element in jazz. By that I mean musically\u2014there\u2019s never been a time when jazz guys have looked backward to sound their message.<\/p>\n

You made some derogatory comments about Kenny G <\/strong>several years ago that gained media attention. How do you feel about <\/strong>that now?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny, that was one of the first viral things on the internet. I honestly never considered at the time that anyone other than six people on my little website and my brother [trumpeter Mike Metheny] would ever see it\u2014it was\u00a0just a goof between him and me at first. On the other hand, as infamous as\u00a0it is, it\u2019s a pretty clear argument that I think has its place and says some things that are basically true, which is that you should not\u00a0overdub yourself on dead people\u2019s records and\u00a0call it your own record [as Kenny G did in\u00a01999 with a Louis Armstrong recording]. I argued that that\u2019s probably not a good thing. I would still make that same argument, although I would pick my words a little bit differently. On the other hand, if I was going to have an infamous cause, it wouldn\u2019t\u00a0be that.<\/p>\n

What would it be?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jazz critics, Wynton Marsalis, the usual. (laughs<\/em>)<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

A then-unknown Jaco Pastorius was on your first album. What are your recollections of him?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jaco was one of the best friends I ever had. I know he\u2019s this legendary figure, but to me he was a guy I met when I was 17 and he was 19. For two or three years, before anyone knew either one of us, we were working on stuff together and doing things and talking a lot. We were able to compare notes with each other all along the way, in a way that neither one of us could with anybody else. Then there was a point where Jaco became an unrecognizable person. He was the only person I knew early on who actually had\u00a0absolutely no connection to drugs or alcohol, which is the way I\u2019ve always been\u2014but there was a point where there was a fork in the road where we took different paths. It literally, chemically, changed him to a different person. So that was always hard for me. He was gone to me, in a way, for years before he was actually gone. [Pastorius died in 1987 at age 35.<\/em>]<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

Do you ever listen to your old records and say, I wish I could go back and teach this young kid Pat Metheny some of the things I\u2019ve learned since?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That guy would be the one telling me stuff.<\/p>\n

I was a million times more sure of everything then than I am now, which is something that comes with being 20. But part of what made so much happen in those early days is that I was so sure about so many things. Now I look back and I think it\u2019s amazing that\u00a0I got all those things through, because\u00a0they weren\u2019t that completely thought out.\u00a0But on the other hand, when I listen to Bright Size Life<\/em> now, I can still play\u00a0every one of those tunes and still\u00a0go, \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Jeff Tamarkin<\/p>\n

Jan\/Feb 2010 Issue of M Music & Musicians<\/em><\/p>\n


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PAT METHENY The jazz guitarist\u2019s new instrument might look funny\u2014but it\u2019s no joke No other jazz guitarist of the past four decades has done as much as Pat Metheny to broaden the definition of the instrument and expand its possibilities. Metheny reached out to listeners outside of the jazz mainstream with early releases like 1975\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[985,984,206,990,988,994,32,995,991,992,993,989,734,987,970,986],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1467"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1470,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions\/1470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}