By Mike Brannon
One of the last times I saw the Pat Metheny Group perform was in a college
auditorium in Texas, where a fluke blackout lasting more than an hour and a
half, delayed and almost cancelled the sold out show. Although this happened
in a town that is anything but a jazz mecca, the people stayed. It was a
testament to how popular and accessible the Metheny group's eclectic blend of
ethnic music with jazz has become
An enigma who's rarely pictured without a guitar, Metheny seems to have a
list of projects he's methodically checking off, of things a jazz musician's
not 'supposed' to
do: base his sound in the realm of digital processing - check. Play all
the parts on the homage to Hendrix, "Stone Free" - check. Collaborate with
David Bowie on a film score - double check. The list goes on and will
continue to, I'm sure, without a noticeable mark on Metheny's career. He
never turned his back on tradition, but chooses to use it in ever progressive
ways while retaining complete integrity and originality. Times have changed -
for the better. Pat Metheny may very well be the one who has changed them.
MB - Do you remember what it was like, as a kid, when you first picked up
the guitar, and why you were drawn to jazz on that instrument, as popular as
rock was then?
PM - I remember a Miles Davis record. I mean, I remember the exact moment.
MB - How do you describe what you play now?
PM - Yeah, its a hard one because I like to be so many different things,
but if I have to put one word on it, jazz is the one, because that's the word
that most people associate with the largest part of what I do.
MB - Sometimes it seems that its just a marketing tool...
PM - Well, the whole thing is that most artists would rather not be
labeled with anything. You know, they, it seems they gotta push your record
in one bin and another, you know. Jazz seems to be the one I have been stuck
in. I think that's the appropriate name.
MB - Will you be releasing any more of the standards you've recorded along
the lines of "Question and Answer"?
PM - Well, I did a record with (saxist) Gary Thomas. Its his record and
its all standards.
MB - In the same way that students can be the best teachers, are there
interests that you have outside of music that have given you insight back
into music and writing?
PM - The whole relationship between sound and..if you can learn from
differences, everything that you hear away from music whether its the sounds
of the city or the sound of anything...if you can relate that to everything
as a musical sound, it means that you're in a constant state of music. And
again, that goes back to what I was saying before: I really believe that our
musical skills are really more about what
they're listening to. So, yeah, I mean for me, I keep my ears open all
the time and try to do things in a musical way.
MB - Do you think that's something that's developed or just natural to
people that tend to be good musicians?
PM - I think that's something that can definitely be developed, you know,
considering talent and natural insight into music.
MB - You've developed and integrated so many different styles within your
playing, yet you still sound original and recognizable, even to
non-musicians. How do you feel you've been able to do that, continue to be
accessible, yet stay hip and focused?
PM - Well, a lot of it, to tell you the truth, it just kind of comes out
that way, as much as I'd love to take credit for this.
MB - It's all natural...
PM - Yeah, its just, I mean there were even times when I kind of wished
that I could sound more like so and so and it would always sound like that
way that I sounded and finally I woke up and said, 'hey, well maybe this is
an advantage'. So, there's a certain amount of that, but I do have real
strong taste about that and, you know, there's certain kinds of notes and
chords and sounds that I naturally gravitate towards. So I think that when
you hear those kinds of things on this record and that record and in this
setting and then in that setting, people start to recognize that style or
sound.
MB - About "Song X", the recording with (saxist) Ornette Coleman: when it
first appeared, it seemed, I think, to listeners to be kind of a departure
from what they thought that you did - the more melodic material. Its
interesting that you said that
Coleman's music was actually your first experience with jazz, or one of
them.
PM - Ornette is very melodic, you know, and the kind of music that was
played on "Song X", for me, is very traditional and familiar. You know, I
guess for a lot of people
...I don't even guess, I know for a lot of people that that's foreign music
for them, but, you know, I've been listening to that kind of playing since I
was 12 years old, so its very familiar to me. And the kind of melodies that
that kind of playing asks for is not that distantly related to the kind of
melody playing that I do anyway. Its just that there's lots of levels of
melody happening simultaneously, and that's something that's a little bit
difficult for people to feel.
MB - Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at. Other levels aren't
naturally heard by everyone, I guess. I remember when the band played four
consecutive nights at Nightstage in Cambridge (Mass.) and you were playing
pretty much all new material...
PM - Yeah, that was...I remember that.
MB - That was the only time that I was aware that you had played
unrecorded material live. Maybe you do it more than I realize, but is it
unusual for you to do that, to perform material before its recorded?
PM - Well, I remember what we did that time because that's the only time we
did that, which is, I prepared all the music for what was gonna be our new
record then, which was "Letter from Home" and we just wanted to try it all
out. You know there's certain things that you can learn about a song from
playing it live that you just don't
get any other way. And that was the case then and that was a real workshop
for us
and, you know, to sort of see how the stuff felt live and it was actually a
very exciting gig. I really enjoyed that.
MB - Yeah, it was really something else. I guess it was the Fall of '92
when you came through Texas; you were doing an unrecorded acoustic solo
guitar piece.
Actually, there were two, but there was one where you were using a detuned
effect, more or less.
PM - Yeah, I think I know the one you're talking about where I had the
guitar tuned down a minor third .
MB - Yeah, the strings sounded rubbery.
PM - Yeah, exactly.
MB - How much a part does improvisation play in the current interpretation
and arrangement of your music and how much does it, or can the material change
from show to show and from tour to studio?
PM - Well, I mean I couldn't play the same solo twice in a row if I wanted
to (laughs).
That's a given.
MB - But as far as arrangements of the song(s): do they change from night
to night?
PM - Well, not that much because...its very much like a big band, you know.
Its like you have sections that are open and you have sections that are the
arrangement and you know for me, I've always been interested in combining
written and arranged material with improvisation. But obviously you have to
write a bunch of notes, you know, you have to give people something to play
or you're gonna have a large ensemble of people sittin' around.
MB - Of course they're all great improvisers.
PM - Sure, but this music we're doing now, I mean the "Secret Story" music,
is really music that is designed to set me up as the soloist. I mean there's
very little improvisation other than the bass and drums and the percussion,
from anyone.
MB - Has that always been true, that your music tended to set you up, to be
kind of a showcase?
PM - Well, its not even so much as a showcase. I mean, it does function I
guess as a showcase, but its more, its a conceptual thing, I mean. And I
think it varies a lot
from song to song, but certainly with my regular group also we have done a
thing where, as I said before, is very similar to a big band in that there's
a lot of energy and time spent to develop a context for the improvisation to
happen. And "Secret Story"
is certainly the most elaborate context I've ever woven for myself. So,
yeah, its really about what I do as the improviser, and its sort of like,
even for me, each song has a very specific subject that you have to address
so that its not like you can just go play anything, you know. Its like this
song is about potatoes and you can make up any story you want, but it has to
be about potatoes. And that's what its like for me, and actually if I'm doing
a song and that has a very specific subject and suddenly I'm talking about
tomatoes when I'm supposed to be talking about potatoes, that's like a
mistake, the same way if I play a Bb (minor or flat 3rd) on a G major chord
is a mistake. Its like you know there's a lot of different levels that
improvisation can function on and there's the whole grammatical question of
which notes sound god on which chords, but then there's the whole question of
context that's much more subtle
and much more difficult for people to perceive, but its kind of a
subconscious kind of thing that you kind of build into each solo.
MB - One the recording "Secret Story", it just has you name, as opposed to
the Pat Metheny group.
PM - Well, that's because its not a group record. I mean the Pat Metheny
Group still exists; we have a live record coming out and the personnel for
the group has been the same for quite a long time. This was a project that
was something I really wanted to do that's separate from the group and the
tour also. You know, I did get a couple of the guys in the group to do the
tours and they were kind of favorite musicians of mine, but yeah, this isn't
the group.
MB - Steve Rodby co-produced the album. What do you feel that he brought to
the project and why did he choose to co-produce?
PM - Steve has really emerged as one of the greatest allies any musician can
have in the recording studio. before he joined my band he worked in the
studios of Chicago
for about ten years in every possible situation and he really had a certain
kind of studio maturity that's really very rare. A lot of people, when they
get in the recording studio, they kind of...go crazy, you know. Either they
get real nervous or they goof around and try things and just lose sight of
what they're really trying to do while they're there. Steve is great at
getting good performances and at organizing tracks
and parts and in that sense he was very, very helpful in the production of
that record.
Because it was a very complex record with lots of different layers and
combinations
of synths and real people and sequencers and metronomes and all kinds of
stuff and it was complex. And Steve, along with David Oakes, who's the other
co-producer, was absolutely essential to the way that record came out.
MB - Is he a musician as well?
PM - David Oakes is our production manager and he does our live sound...and
probably knows the way I play better than anybody on Earth. He's the only
person I really trust to decide whether I'm playing good enough or not good
enough or if I'm done or if I should solo some more or whatever. He is really
the greatest at that.
MB - How do you go about writing new music and how has this process changed
as you've gained experience composing?
PM - Writing is definitely the hardest part of the whole thing. Its very
difficult for me, and what I have to do is spend a lot of hours sitting in
front of the piano and trying to.
What makes it hard is, for me now, is that I've kind of set a standard for
myself that its not just a matter of writing a little tune anymore. If you're
gonna write, its gotta be like a thing, you know? I gotta have a whole vibe
and a whole conception and all that stuff, and that tends to take time. You
know you just have to put the hours in and really be patient and sit there and
hang in there with things and wait for things to happen.
MB - Did you mostly learn it by doing it or learn it by being around great
composers? I mean, you didn't really go to school for it, per se, did you?
PM - I really learned by doing it, I mean, and the few times that I've been
around other composers have been really, really, really great for me. I'm
thinking of (film score composer) Jerry Goldsmith, who I got to spend a couple
of weeks with on a film score a few years ago. And then I was around Steve
Reich a lot when he wrote this piece for me for the "Electric Counterpoint",
and I got to kind of pick his brain a lot and sort of just watch him in
action. Those have been very influential for me.
MB - What about Lyle (Mays)?
PM - And Lyle also, yeah. Watching Lyle in action and just collaborating
with him. We work in very, very different ways and we're a real good
combination for that reason.
MB - Yeah, it almost seems like one could get the sense that one of you
picks up where the other left off or vice versa.
PM - Well, yeah, in some ways that's true. I mean, most of what we've written
together have been pieces of mine that he's helped finish and watching the
process that he brings. He's very intellectual about music. I'm very
intuitive, and its very stimulating for me to kind of just that brain thing
kick that he's got and how he analyzes things I don't analyze at all, and
yeah, that has been important.
MB - Do you still rely on the (NED) Synclavier as much as when you first
started to compose and perform with it?
PM - Yeah, that's the environment that I work in as a musician and its good
for me in a number of levels, not the least of which is organization. You
know, I can be working on a piece and maybe if i get stuck I can save it and
recall it four years later, and it comes back exactly the same way I left it.
Its the same sound and everything.
I mean its really one of the few total recall systems that exist.
MB - Is that the only other type of software/hardware situation that you use?
PM - I also use (Opcode) Vision and Performer, too, for different
situations, because sequencers that exist in those formats really, at this
point, surpass the Synclavier.
MB - Do you think that it has tended to take you places that you wouldn't
have otherwise explored?
PM - Absolutely.
MB - Where do you think that your music would have gone, say, without the
advent of digital technology?
PM - I can't even imagine. You know, I think about that every now and then.
MB - Of course, that's not all that you do. Obviously you do acoustic music.
PM - But still, it has been...probably the single, largest change in my life
as a musician. Before 1978, I was just a guitar player, you know, and maybe I
could play a little bit of piano, and I'd write things on piano and give them
to the cats in the band. But since that time, you know, I really think of
music as this big thing now, of which the guitar is a component and I really
think a lot of that has to do with what the Synclavier kind of forced me into
thinking about, you know, anything is possible.
So, its been very stimulating.
MB - If I could just throw a couple of names at you, maybe you could reflect
on the experiences of playing with people like Michael Brecker and Ornette,
the Heath brothers and Sonny Rollins - any of those?
PM - All are real different. Mike Brecker for me is, you know, probably the
most fluent harmonic player of my generation, you know. I mean, there's
nobody I know who has the kind of amazing control of harmony that this guy
has.
MB - And still found his own voice.
PM - Yeah, and he's just got such incredible time! He really knows how to
play with a drummer, and that's a very rare quality. Sonny Rollins, did you
say that?
MB - Yeah, Sonny.
PM - One of the greatest musicians, you know, of all time. And the time I
spent playing in his band was one of the most incredible periods of my life.
MB - How long was that?
PM - About four months. I was taking a break from my regular band and
played in his band for awhile. It was great.
MB - How about the Heath brothers?
PM - The Heath brothers were just a one time thing but it was just so much
fun because they're you know, just a bunch of characters. We did that one
record and, yeah, it was a blast.
MB - And Ornette?
PM - God, I don't even know where to start there. I mean, I'm still
recovering five years later from that.
MB - You think you'll work together again?
PM - Yeah. Yeah, we talk about it all the time.
MB - Could you talk awhile about Jaco?
PM - Well, he was my best friend for fifteen years and a musician who's
music and career and everything most closely paralleled mine. I mean, we were
like brothers, you know, and you know I really miss him. I miss him a lot, a
lot and as many people as there are that try to play like him, nobody has
ever gotten in the parking lot to the ball park and no one ever will. And you
know, for me, when I hear people playing fretless bass trying to imitate
that, there's something I find a bit offensive about that. You know, it has
become a part of the vocabulary and everything but, its the same way I feel
when I hear guitar players playing in octaves, kind of like Wes Montgomery.
Its sort of like, yeah, we all dig that. I mean, that was greatest, but that
was one persons thing, and to me, its a matter of respect. And what really
gets me
is when I hear guys playing like that and they don't even mention Jaco. But I
remember it so clearly, the first time I heard Jaco, which was before he was
Jaco:
J-a-c-o, he was J-o-c-k-o, Jocko, and you know it was something didn't exist
one minute and then it did the next minute. You know, it was like no one had
even thought of the bass in those terms before and he really invented the
instrument. He invented fretless bass. I mean, there's so many dimensions
that his music functioned on, from the lyrical, pretty thing to the what is
completely unprecedented-on-any-instrument, rhythmic thing that he had
happening when he would play those sixteenth notes. I've never heard anybody
play with that kind of rhythmic confidence and that's something that only
comes along once in a generation.
MB - Do you feel that spirituality plays a large part in your musical
development and ability to perform and do you have specific spiritual beliefs
at all?
PM - I don't have specific spiritual beliefs other than that I know I believe
in music itself and, to me, within that world alone is an infinite world of
itself and that's the world that I, kind of, choose to live in. You know,
music is a constant source of fascination and mystery for mean its something
that I always approach with a lot of respect and humility because I see
belief in music as something that comes from a place outside of our regular
consciousness. You know, when I read about religion and these people that are
very religious, it seems in a lot of ways, more about ego to me. More about,
like, people trying to make sure they get into Heaven, or something or that
they're cool when they die. There's a lot of, like, well, we know this, but,
you don't know that, kind of thing. The thing about music that I like is that
it is very inviting to everybody and it sort of, it really functions as a
mirror for people and I think that religion as its best can do that, too. So,
I think they're very similar.
MB - About the tour with Herbie (Hancock): is there any material from that or
is there anything upcoming?
PM - Yeah, there's a really, really good video laser disc of that tour that I
think is gonna get released here in the states and we are planning sometime,
maybe in '95, to do it again. We're all so busy.
MB - I guess I've always wanted to ask this: what's the deal with the
toothbrush?
PM - When I was about sixteen years old, the little pin at the bottom of the
guitar
that holds the strap on, broke off, and I had to finish the gig, so I took
the strap and wrapped it around the tailpiece and I had to have something to
stick in the hole so it would stay on the guitar, and I had a toothbrush
there and its been there ever since.
For more info on the PMG go to: www.patmethenygroup.com.
