Results for "Lyle Mays"

Lyle Mays

Anyone who has seen the Pat Metheny Group in concert knows how the brilliant keyboard artistry of Lyle Mays is integral to their sound. While Mays has made his mark in the jazz idiom, he counts Bartok, Stravinsky, Berg, and Ravel among his musical inspirations. As a key collaborator with Metheny on their multi-Grammy ® winning albums and record-breaking Pat Metheny Group tours, Mays rarely finds the time to step out to feature his own solo work. When he does, as his “Solo " Improvisations For Expanded Piano” illustrated, Mays stands out as one of the masters of the instrument. While he is capable of keyboard pyrotechnics, Lyle knows just when to ease back and rely on just a melody to create a lyrical ambience and emotional base. Born in Wausaukee, Wisconsin, on November 27, 1953, Lyle grew up in a musical environment and was recognized by his teachers for his exceptional talent and ability

Steve Swallow Interview

By MIKE BRANNON

From the 1995-2003 archive: This article first appeared at All About Jazz in January 2001. Steve Swallow may not be a household name, at least in most households, but if you've listened to contemporary jazz over the last thirty years, you've likely heard him on one side of the studio glass or the other. ...

John Scofield: One For Swallow

By IAN PATTERSON

From time to time in his storied career John Scofield will take a look over his shoulder and re-examine some of the music that has fed into his own, personal brand of jazz. The influences are many, for no matter the context that Scofield engineers, his distinctive sound always carries something of the blues, a little ...

A Jazz Immuno-Booster: Part 7

By LUDOVICO GRANVASSU

The immuno-booster series continues, and confirms its wide-ranging nature. In this seventh installment the selections range from Stevie Wonder to Mahalia Jackson, passing through Myra Melford, Lyle Mays, Bill Frisell, Charlie Haden, John Coltrane, The Weather Report and Lea Bertucci, who surprisingly seems to take off where Jacobus Gallus left a few hundred years earlier. Mina ...

Pat Metheny: From This Place

By CHRIS M. SLAWECKI

When a musician of Pat Metheny's pedigree writes, “From This Place is one of the records I have been waiting to make my whole life," it seems prudent to listen. Each of these ten new compositions seems to reflect a different aspect of Metheny as composer and guitarist, casting his bright and articulate voice ...

Innervisions, Improvisations and Other Jazz Fevers

By CHRIS M. SLAWECKI

Lili Añel Better Days Winding Way Records 2019 Singer-songwriter Lili Añel and Better Days sound cut straight out of the northeast US. It's more than the geographic location of Añel's birth (Spanish Harlem, “El Barrio," in New York) or raised (South Bronx), and it's more than ...

Lyle Mays + Alicia Waller, Pat Metheny, Silvia Bolognesi & Other New Releases

By LUDOVICO GRANVASSU

Another master has left us too early, Lyle Mays. A remembrance of his work at its most lyrical, followed by our regular perusal of must-have new releases, with a special focus on albums spotlighting towering young bass players, a stunner of a debut by Alicia Waller and the return of Pat Metheny. Happy ...

Randy Napoleon, Dave Brubeck, Troy Roberts and More

By JOE DIMINO

This episode features a number of artists interviewed by host Joe Dimino. We begin with guitarist Randy Napoleon and his mentor Donald Walden. Then, we look into the music of Canadian cat Eric St-Laurent and we profile Australian-born saxophonist Troy Roberts . Finally, we pay our respects to the great Lyle Mays and his contributions to ...

Pat Metheny: From This Place

By JOHN KELMAN

It's been a full six years since Pat Metheny last released a studio recording. This, despite the guitarist who has become, in a career now in the midst of its fifth decade, one of the most famous and influential jazz guitarists of his (or, some would argue, any) generation, reportedly having enough material in the can ...

Pat Metheny

Pat Metheny was born in Kansas City on August 12, 1954 into a musical family. Starting on trumpet at the age of 8, Metheny switched to guitar at age 12. By the age of 15, he was working regularly with the best jazz musicians in Kansas City, receiving valuable on-the-bandstand experience at an unusually young age. Metheny first burst onto the international jazz scene in 1974. Over the course of his three-year stint with vibraphone great Gary Burton, the young Missouri native already displayed his soon-to-become trademarked playing style, which blended the loose and flexible articulation customarily reserved for horn players with an advanced rhythmic and harmonic sensibility—a way of playing and improvising that was modern in conception but grounded deeply in the jazz tradition of melody, swing, and the blues