Pat Metheny – What’s It All About (2011/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 55:53 minutes | 1010 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Nonesuch

The acoustic solo guitar album from Pat Metheny called “What’s It All About” features classic tunes from songwriters like Paul Simon, Lennon & McCartney, Burt Bacharach, and Henry Mancini. Pat describes it like this: “I wanted to record some of the music that was on my radar before I ever wrote a note of my own, or in a few cases, even before I played an instrument. Every one of these tunes has something going on that is just hip on a musical level, no matter how you cut it. They have all stuck with me over the years.”

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Pat Metheny – Unity Band (2012/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:05:49 minutes | 1,37 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Nonesuch

2012 Grammy Award Winner: Best Jazz Instrumental Album: For the first time since his 1980 release 80/81, guitarist Pat Metheny has recorded with a band that features tenor saxophone. Unity Band, due from Nonesuch on June 12, 2012, introduces a new Metheny ensemble with Chris Potter on sax and bass clarinet, longtime collaborator Antonio Sanchez on drums, and the up-and-coming Ben Williams on bass. The album features nine new Metheny compositions.

Metheny says of the three-decade gap since his last project to feature saxophonists (the late great Dewey Redman and Michael Brecker): “In many ways my bands were envisioned as an alternative to the more conventional kinds that I had come up playing in. The fact that it has taken another 30 years to get to it again is kind of a testament to how busy those ‘alternative’ ways of thinking have kept me.

“We all always talked about revisiting that band at some point, but with both Mike and Dewey gone now, that will never happen,” he continues. “But then Chris Potter came along. As a fan, I have watched as he has become one of the greatest musicians of our time, and when we were both invited to play on Antonio Sanchez’s debut record, I immediately saw that we had a natural way of playing and phrasing that suggested something more. I started thinking right then of somehow building a project around that.”
For the rhythm section, Metheny explains, “Antonio was kind of an obvious choice; he has been one of my closest associates over the past ten years and has also played a lot with Chris. He is such a special musician. There was a certain kind of power I knew that Chris and I would be getting to and I can’t think of anyone who could take us to that place better than Antonio.” He continues, “A few years ago, Christian McBride invited me to an event that he was leading with the jazz students at Juilliard. Ben Williams was featured on a few tunes and his playing spoke to me immediately. I used Ben a few times to sub for Christian with the trio and found him to be a great playing partner and a great person too. He and Antonio had an instantly effortless rapport.”

Once he had assembled this stellar band, Metheny wrote a considerable amount of new material for them. Through rehearsals, they winnowed the music down to the nine tunes on the Unity Band album. “It’s funny, I have heard so many guitar/tenor records that have been clearly influenced by that 80/81 sound, and yet I really wanted to try to take it to a different place this time, even though that record was certain to be a reference point along the way,” Metheny says. “One of Antonio’s specialties is this even eighth-note thing he does, and in a lot of ways that set a direction for the writing. But still, this is a group of musicians who can do just about anything.”

Over the course of more than three decades, guitarist Pat Metheny has set himself apart from the jazz mainstream, expanding and blurring boundaries and musical styles. His record-setting body of work includes 19 Grammy Awards in 12 separate categories; a series of influential trio recordings; award-winning solo albums; scores for hit Hollywood motion pictures; and collaborations and duets with major artists such as Ornette Coleman, Steve Reich, Charlie Haden, Brad Mehldau, and many others. His band the Pat Metheny Group, founded in 1977, is the only ensemble in history to win Grammys for seven consecutive releases.

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Pat Metheny – Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV) (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 01:02:45 minutes | 813 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Modern Recordings

Once a child prodigy, and then a flashy youth, guitarist Pat Metheny has now become a jazz elder. As such he’s made the selfless decision to return the favor of the older players who mentored him, by working with a cadre of young players, showing them the ropes of touring, and allowing them, as he puts it in the liner notes of Side-Eye, the chance to develop through the “prism” of his experience. With an organ trio (numbered IV hence the title) anchored by 26-year-old multi-keyboardist James Francies, Metheny recorded a set of new compositions and re-imagined older originals in a September 2019 concert at New York’s Sony Hall. Captured in full, dynamic sound by engineer Pete Karam and co-produced by longtime Metheny cohort Steve Rodby-both of whom are prominently credited in the liner notes-the partnership of Metheny and Francies opens with a new composition, the long, straight-ahead workout “It Starts When We Disappear.” Innovative drummer Marcus Gilmore (Vijay Iyer, Ambrose Akinmusire) establishes a fast swinging rhythm over which Metheny, on guitar, bass, guitar synth and orchestrionics (his word for a plethora of electronic and acoustic instruments he controls), picks out crystalline guitar notes whose signature ringing tone has become as unmistakable as Miles Davis’ muted horn. That’s followed by a shadowy reworking of “Better Days Ahead” (from 1989’s Letter from Home) on which Francies is generously credited as arranger. (Metheny notes, Francies “brought a vibe” that provided “a fresh way of looking at it.”) On a funky, R&B-influenced version of another Metheny original, “Timeline” (first recorded by the late Michael Brecker), Francies adds quavering B-3 organ textures while Gilmore swings madly. In another typically stellar Metheny set of nothing but highlights, two additional tracks do stand out however. Covering Ornette Coleman’s bluesy “Turnaround,” Metheny and Francies trade solos, often stepping out completely, leaving the other with only Gilmore’s steady support over which their economical expressions pour forth. And for anyone who’s ever wondered where Metheny might stack up in the pantheon of rock guitarists, there’s “Lodger”-no relation to the Bowie album of the same name. Switching to what sounds like a solid body electric Les Paul, he tastefully cuts loose, in a jazz-influenced kind of way on the instrumental power ballad. Right on cue, an appreciative crowd hoots their approval. With a hint of the fruitful keyboard and guitar partnership with Lyle Mays that energized many of the guitarist’s most famous albums, Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV) is the sound of master and his apprentice further enriching the Metheny legacy.

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Pat Metheny – It Starts When We Disappear (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 13:47 minutes | 182 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Modern Recordings

Pat Metheny has unveiled the latest chapter in his wildly prolific career with the release of “It Starts When We Disappear”, the first single from his upcoming new album SIDE-EYE. The album present a new setting featuring the 20-time GRAMMY winner accompanied by a handpicked and rotating cast of players featuring some of the most exciting and innovative new musicians on the New York scene!

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Pat Metheny – 80/81 (Remastered) (1980/2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:20:30 minutes | 1,70 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM

Digitally remastered! With 80/81, Pat Metheny took one step closer to his dream of working with The Prophet of Freedom (a dream he finally achieved with 1985’s Song X), and what better company than Coleman alumni Charlie Haden and Dewey Redman, both fresh off the boat of Keith Jarrett’s newly defunct American Quartet and both welcome additions to the extended Metheny family. Along with the technical mastery of reedman Mike Brecker and drummer Jack DeJohnette, plus a dash of post-bop spice, the result was this still-fresh sonic concoction. The atmospheres of the opening “Two Folk Songs” invite us with that expansive pastoralism so characteristic of Metheny. This makes Brecker’s highly trained yet raw stylings all the more marked, bringing as they do a sense of presence that explodes into a million pieces. Metheny’s benign sound catches at the threshold of perfection with every turn of phrase, allowing Brecker fiery bursts of abandon. DeJohnette throws on a log or two with his rocketing solo, while Haden wipes the slate clean with shadings of his own. Metheny shows off his unparalleled command of two-string harmonies, fading on a lightly skipping snare. This feeling of perpetual motion lingers throughout the title track. Content in sharing the revelry, Metheny relays to Redman who, though he may not fly as high, emits no less intensity in his groove. “The Bat” gives us a minor-keyed shadow of “I’ll be Home for Christmas” before diving headfirst into Coleman’s “Turnaround.” This trio setting boasts inventive melodies and a plunking solo from Haden. “Open” is, suitably enough, the freest track on the album, emboldened by trade-offs between Redman and Brecker, while “Pretty Scattered” dances more lithely with John Abercrombie-like exuberance. A ringing high from Metheny laser-etches this track into our memory. Balladry abounds in “Every Day (I Thank You),” one of his most gorgeous ever committed to disc. This is music that grins even as we grin, and shines through the darkest cloud of a Midwestern storm. Metheny ends alone with “Goin’ Ahead.” This breath-catching piece works its farewell into our hearts with every suspended note, effortlessly walking the beaten path of all those souls who have traveled before, so that those yet to be born might know where they come from, and to where they might return.

Like much of what Metheny produces, 80/81 is wide open in two ways. First in its far-reaching vision, and second it its willingness to embrace the listener. Like a dolly zoom, he enacts an illusion of simultaneous recession and approach, lit like a fuse that leads not to an explosion, but to more fuse.

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