I have been eagerly awaiting the release of Rick Beato’s extended interview with guitarist Pat Metheny ever since I first heard rumors of it being scheduled. Like Beato, Metheny has long been my favorite jazz guitarist, whom I have had the opportunity to hear in concert in California in the 90s and here in Indiana a few years ago. His eclectic body of work is phenomenal, but it’s his album ‘Secret Story’ that is particularly meaningful to me for a variety of reasons (a blog post in itself I hope to get around to writing one of these days).
In this far-reaching interview Metheny affably shares his unique approach to music, composition and the guitar, often describing artistic choices and processes in non-musical, sometimes oblique terms. Musicians get what he’s saying, but I think non-musicians can capture a sense of how musicians tend to think and express themselves as well. Beato interviewing Metheny is an enlightening meeting of two intensely musical minds, and both men did a superb job on this video.
This interview was 5 years in the making. Pat is my favorite guitarist and biggest influence. The interview is 1:46 hours packed full of incredible stories and insights I never knew about Pat. He even played guitar which is something I have never seen him do in an interview setting. If you want to see more content like this or support my channel you can donate through this link on my website: https://rickbeato.com/pages/donate
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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.
With the release of his first album, Bright Size Life (1975), he reinvented the traditional “jazz guitar” sound for a new generation of players. Throughout his career, Pat Metheny has continued to re-define the genre by utilizing new technology and constantly working to evolve the improvisational and sonic potential of his instrument. METHENY’S versatility is almost nearly without peer on any instrument. Over the years, he has performed with artists as diverse as Steve Reich to Ornette Coleman to Herbie Hancock to Jim Hall to Milton Nascimento to David Bowie. Metheny’s body of work includes compositions for solo guitar, small ensembles, electric and acoustic instruments, large orchestras, and ballet pieces, with settings ranging from modern jazz to rock to classical.
On September 10th, 2021 Modern Recordings will release PAT METHENY SIDE-EYE – NYC, an exciting, vibrant and energized new platform for Metheny, showcased in a recording that features 30 minutes of intricate new music set alongside a few unexpected and creative re-workings of Metheny classics re-imagined. So, what is Side-Eye? Pat explains, “I wanted to create an ongoing platform to host a rotating cast of the newer generations of musicians who have particularly caught my interest along the way. From my earliest days in Kansas City onward, I was the beneficiary of so many older musicians hiring me, which gave me a chance to develop through the prism of their experiences and the particular demands of what their music implied.”
