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Terry Collins

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My Jazz Story

The best jazz show I ever attended was the Pat Metheny Group at Hammersmith Odeon, London in 1984 (?). Friend Pete and I had already bought As Falls Witchita, Offramp and First Circle, and were eager to hear the music live we sat in the 'gods', the upper tier, which gave us a good view of the group as they played their way on to the stage playing Forward March from First Circle. From then on we were entranced; we got sublime, saudade spine-tingling melodies played acoustically, heard the fingers slide up the strings, loud synthesised orgasmic group singalongs, and Ornette Coleman free-formish what was that? Being British, we applauded politely after each piece, some of which we recognised. None of us waved cigarette lighters (now camera-phones) in the air to say "Look at me, I'm at a Pat Metheny gig", something which Americans (and sadly, Indonesians) posing as audiences are prone to do. When they finished playing some of the tightest ensemble playing we had ever been privileged to witness ~ whoosh - as one ~ the entire audience stood and roared for more. I still get goosebumps recalling that magic moment. The group came back and stood at the front of the stage looked around, looked up, their arms around each others' shoulders and you could almost hear their mutual thought ~ "What the f**k have we done here?" ~ as they realised that we had given them the ultimate accolade. They played another half an hour and seemed to surpass themselves. They knew we could take it.

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