Jazz Articles about Pat Metheny

Pat Metheny: Secret Story: Deluxe Edition

by John Kelman
October 20, 2007

If The Way Up (Nonesuch, 2005) is Pat Metheny Group's magnum opus, then Secret Story is the guitarist's greatest achievement as a solo artist to date. A sprawling, 76-minute epic featuring a wealth of guest artists, members of a symphony orchestra and Metheny playing countless parts on an arsenal of guitars and keyboards, its only flaw has been the comparably thin sound that marred much of his Geffen-era work. Secret Story: Deluxe Edition not only gives the album the sonic ...

Pat Metheny / Brad Mehldau: Quartet

by Doug Collette
May 7, 2007

The second installment of the Pat Metheny/Brad Mehldau collaboration illustrates how the most accomplished and established musicians endure growing pains as they learn to work together. Even a partnership as complementary as this one benefits from a guiding hand or, alternately, suffers for lack of one.

Make no mistake, the presence of Larry Grenadier's bass and Jeff Ballard's drums add depth to this music and preclude any chance of it becoming lightweight . There is far too much detail on ...

Metheny-Mehldau: Playing (Mostly) Together in Boston

by Doug Collette
May 6, 2007

Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau The Opera House Boston, Massachusetts April 14, 2007

More than one attendee might've been ambivalent while seeing Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau perform at The Opera House in Boston April 14th. Two hours of impeccable musicianship rendered with formidable technique nevertheless contained the same relative strengths and weaknesses exhibited in the pair of Metheny-Mehldau CDs released on Nonesuch over the past few months.

No question there is an uncommon ...

Metheny Mehldau: Quartet

by Stephen Wood
March 6, 2007

One sure sign of musicianship is adaptability. And it is precisely because Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau possess this very quality that Quartet is so captivating. I find it hard to imagine how a pair of musicians could deliver such a subtly different mood in their second release than in their first. But the guitarist and pianist have come through with an album that remains deeply committed to melody and harmony, while concomitantly preserving the right to deviate from those ...

Pat Metheny / Brad Mehldau: Metheny Mehldau

by Stephen Wood
February 1, 2007

For anyone who forgot how the intimacy of a guitar and piano duo could emblazon musical ideas, just look to Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau's first collaboration, Metheny Mehldau. In many ways this record continues the conversation between guitar and piano begun by Jim Hall and Bill Evans nearly fifty years before.

But that is not to say that Metheny and Mehldau have fallen into predictable patterns. Both have managed to preserve unique voices that propitiously bolster the ...

Pat Metheny: Another Phase Dance

by Doug Collette
December 11, 2006

Through the course of a career that now exceeds thirty years in the limelight, guitarist Pat Metheny has never ceased to surprise. No matter the context within which he chooses to play—his flagship Pat Metheny Group, in a trio, as a collaborator with figures including bassist Charlie Haden or as a guest in large projects such as the recent NYC tribute to minimalist composer Steve Reich—the Missouri-born guitarist and composer will not allow himself to become predictable.Given how ...

Pat Metheny / Brad Mehldau: Metheny Mehldau

by CJ Shearn
October 24, 2006

This collaboration between Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau reveals them to be a perfect match for each other. Although they have contrasting, profoundly personal approaches, they share a certain admiration for each other's music. Metheny was transfixed upon hearing the pianist's playing on the minor-key piece “Chill, from Joshua Redman's Moodswing (Warner Bros, 1994), while “Are You Going With Me? from the Pat Metheny Group's essential Travels (ECM, 1983) was the tune that converted Mehldau to a lifelong appreciation. This ...