Displaying items by tag: Offramp

Pat Metheny is one of the few jazz guitar players out there that can play a bigger place and fill it. He almost has Rock Star status. The reason? Maybe it’s the horizontal striped shirt? The leather pants? The hair? The smile? Hmmm…what I really think it is…is the music.

Pat seems to have a Pop sensibility to his compositions. His songs are very melodic. They’re Jazz but they sure are not BeBop. There are interesting rhythms found in each song. Along with that you get a variety of textures. The fact that he doesn’t seem to follow a formula per se adds that extra bit of appeal.

Metheny has changed his sound through the years. Different timbres not only coming from him, but his supporting cast. Pat does seem to have a signature sound, but since he has been putting out music for over forty years the signature has many variations. The band played a lot of his earlier material the other night at Ravinia Festival.

The first piece was a solo piece called “Into the Dream”. I highly suggest looking up the video, if you haven’t seen Pat play this song live. During the song he uses a guitar with a standard guitar neck plus a fretless/harp neck. In addition, there are two more courses of strings going across the body of the guitar. I’m just glad I wasn’t the person who had to tune the instrument. Each course was tuned differently, making the song sound like the title. You were in his dream.

After an impressive opening number, the rest of the band then arrived on the stage. Linda May Han Oh handled upright and electric bass. What a solid player this Malaysian-born young lady is. She held it down throughout the show and performed some very tasty solos.

Antonio Sanchez has been in Pat’s band for a while now on drums. I love Jazz drummers myself. The rhythmic interplay between guitar and drums has long been a part of the music in Metheny’s bands through the years. Hailing from Mexico, Sanchez fit the bill as well as anyone ever in his group.

Longtime collaborator Lyle Mays’ seat at piano was filled by Gwilym Simcock, a British musician. I personally missed Mays’ presence but the music didn’t really suffer any loss. Simcock played very well, perfectly complimenting Metheny.

The show went over two hours with THREE, yes three encores…again…Rock Star status. After what we thought was the last encore, he asked the audience if they wanted to hear one more. So, it made it a four-song finale. The second to last was “And I Love Her” by The Beatles done Pat’s way. There were also three duet sections performed that night. Metheny did one with each of the other group members. Standing out the most was the one he did with Sanchez.

The timbres he got from the different instruments was a big part of what kept the show from ever slowing down. Standard Jazz guitar, guitar synth, classical, plus a guitar with a bizarre tailpiece…that almost sounded like a fuzz tone acoustic…very non-traditional.

Other classic Metheny songs included “Better Days Ahead”, “The Red One”, “Phase Dance”, “James” and “Offramp”, giving the audience a wide spectrum of his work.

I felt lucky to see him. The show was almost rained out. For me, it was 32 years since I saw him last. I will not wait that long until I see him again (that would make him somewhere in his mid 90’s by then anyway). But you never know with this guy. The way he literally runs on and off the stage makes me think he might still be playing then…with hair, the striped shirt and of course the signature grin. Pat is almost always smiling.