Yesterday, a friend of mine mentioned being interested in Pat Metheny’s music. It occured to me that for someone who’s just starting out, tackling any large catalog of music can be overwhelming. Where do you start? I’ve sometimes started with the newest or oldest recordings of an artist, or starting somewhere in the middle with one of that artist’s most popular recordings. With Pat Metheny’s music, you have to acknowledge his multiple musical paths, and choose those that may sound the most interesting to you. This post is a primer of Metheny’s wide body of recordings, and I will keep it simple for the sake of this discussion.
A brief history: Pat Metheny recorded a handful of albums under his name in the late 70s for ECM Records. In 1980, he formed the first Pat Metheny Group (PMG), and released a self-titled recording that many call the “White Album”, as the cover featured only the names of the musicians (Lyle Mays, piano; Mark Egan, bass; Danny Gottlieb, drums). While there were some future hints of the PMG on his earliest recordings, it all jelled on this first PMG album. From that point on, Metheny would follow two parallel paths: one with the Group, and one without.
The success of the first PMG album guaranteed the next few Group albums would be a success also: Offramp, First Circle, etc. At the same time, Pat would record a duet album with Lyle Mays, augmented by percussionist and future PMG member Nana Vasconcelos (As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls). Moving to the Geffen resulted in more popular PMG albums, and some interesting side projects such as Song X with Ornette Coleman, the controversial Zero Tolerance for Silence with Metheny on solo electric guitar (or better yet, “solo distortion”), and the breathtaking Secret Story (which is arguably one of his masterpieces).
Metheny is currently with Nonesuch, and has released two PMG albums and a handful of other projects such as the pair of recordings with Brad Mehldau, and a trio recording, Day Trip, with current PMG drummer Antonio Sanchez and bassist Christian McBride.
And over the years, it’s not hard to find Pat guesting on many other recordings as well. He has appeared on a couple of his brother Mike Metheny’s recordings, with Milton Nascimento, Gary Burton, and countless others.
Before I begin any recommendations, I will say that I generally prefer the Group recordings, but that’s just my taste in music. Pat’s other recordings are just as rewarding, but are also a lot more adventurous if you’re into that sort of pursuit.
So, where to start? I’ll pick a handful of albums for starters and let you, the reader, explore beyond that. To get more insight into the music, Pat’s website has numerous podcasts that describe some of his albums in detail. These are entertaining, and very informative, and very much worth the download. As they contain the music from the album, it is also a good way to sample them. You can also listen to 30 second clips of most of Pat’s albums via Amazon.
And now, my recommendations!
First of all, I will strongly recommend Pat Metheny’s Secret Story. It is now available in an edition with a bonus CD containing extra tracks that did not fit into the original album, but while they’re nice, they’re not essential. The original album is one of the most adventurous, creative, breathtaking and haunting albums I’ve ever heard. Pat’s guitar is featured on all of the tracks, but he employs a cast of dozens of musicians, and an orchestra, to fill out his original ideas. It has been called “a soundtrack without a film” for good reason: these songs are very visual. He features members of the Group, along with other musicians who filled the roles on the recording perfectly, using them like a painter chooses shades of acrylics on the palatte. Yes, it has jazz elements, but it is very “midwestern” in its ideas…definitely genre-defying. You can read more about it here under my Desert Island featurette.
One album that has grown on me recently is the Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays album As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls. A few of the parts sound dated (as polyphonic synthesizers were fairly new back in the early 80s), but there are some beautiful sections to this music. Again, this is another recording that defies being cast as any one type of music. While you do hear jazz elements, I would actually go out on a limb and call this one of the very first “new age” albums (and not in the “yuppie Muzak” sense either). The side-long title track has three sections–a low-key introduction, a percussive mid-section, and a several minute ending passage that is basically a wash of synthesizer chords and tones. Interspersed throughout are numerous subdued sound effects that are very subtle, but work together; it brings to mind a lengthy tour on an open road. (Which is, by the way, a recurring theme that I sense in a lot of Metheny’s music.) “Ozark” is a lively track that brings to mind “mountain music” for me–piano and bright guitars, spiced up with some inobtrusive percussion. “September Fifteenth” is their tribute to the late, great pianist Bill Evans, who passed on this date while the album was being recorded. “It’s For You” has some interesting synth colors in the first half, where the second half picks up steam with Pat’s chugging guitars. In this track and the album’s closer, Vasconselos vocalizes the melody over Pat and Lyle. This sound would actually become a trademark of later Group albums.
The first Pat Metheny Group (self-titled) album is considered by many to be one of the best and/or their personal favorite. “San Lorenzo” features, in my opinion, one of Lyle’s finest piano solos. His is a very lyrical, dynamic approach that starts lightly, runs through a few different shades, and builds slowly to a triumphant finish. “Phase Dance” is a PMG standard, one of those songs that are instantly recognized. The album’s closer, “Lone Jack”, is a fast-paced workout for Pat and Lyle.
Next, I have to point out the PMG album We Live Here. It is not a favorite with some PMG fans due to its “street” orientation, but in my eyes, it is a very solid album in a contemporary style and one of his most accessible. The “street” comment comes from the use of drum machines and drum loops–this was the intention of Metheny when he conceptualized the album, improvising against a rhythmic element that was locked in to a pattern.
The PMG albums First Circle, Still Life (Talking) and Letter From Home are not interchangeable, but they are three parts of the same theme. The title track of First Circle introduces the vocalizing that would appear on most PMG albums to follow, especially the other two in this series. First Circle‘s title track also explores an unusual time signature, alternating 6/4 and 5/4 (or is it 11/4?) throughout. Still Life (Talking) features what is perhaps the best known Pat Metheny track: “Last Train Home”; the haunting wordless vocals are by the late Mark Ledford, who was also a very versatile multi-instrumentalist that Pat used on many of his projects. The album Letter From Home is the third in the series, and features more stretching into alternate time signatures, my favorite being “5-5-7”, which relates to the time signatures 5/4, 5/4 and 7/4. All three are excellent albums, and you can’t go wrong with any of them. Quintessential Pat Metheny Group!
The recent PMG album Speaking Of Now actually recalls these earlier three albums, and is another one I’ve enjoyed quite a bit. With this album, the Group has been revamped with a new drummer (Antonio Sanchez) and a trumpeter/vocalist, Cuong Vu. The core of Pat, Lyle and Steve Rodby remains.
An honorable mention goes to Imaginary Day. It’s another travelogue type of album from the Group, and has a few different styles you normally don’t hear on a PMG album, such as a distorted guitar on “The Roots of Coincidence”. The honorable mention is for the surround version on DVD-Audio, if you can find it, and have the equipment to play it back on. The mix is breathtaking! Another honorable mention goes to the ambitious PMG project called The Way Up, which is actually a single 67-minute composition in four parts. This is the first long-form composition Metheny has done since the Wichita Falls album with Lyle many years ago.
As for Pat Metheny’s solo and side projects, I am not as well versed in those. Secret Story is a must-have, but beyond that, Pat has explored so many other avenues, it’s hard to really recommend anything. For more avant garde jazz, he recorded an album with Ornette Coleman called Song X, an album that polarizes many Pat Metheny fans. And to top it off, there is another Metheny solo album that most fans either love or hate (actually, there are very few in the “love” category). It is basically a solo guitar album played all on electric guitar, mostly distortion and chords, called Zero Tolerance For Silence. The nicest thing I can say is that if you should see it in the dollar bin, pick it up because you’ve never heard anything like it before. But don’t spend more than a dollar. On the other side of the coin, his solo guitar recording One Quiet Night is very intimate, and is a favorite of many.
I hope this helps you get a start on exploring Pat Metheny’s music!