Pat Metheny, his Side-Eye Trio to play Grand Opera House
The Grand Opera House in Wilmington, Delaware, welcomes 20-time Grammy-Award-winning guitarist Pat Metheny and his Side-Eye Trio on June 10 at 8 p.m.
The tour features a pair of talented rising stars in music — pianist Chris Fishman and drummer Joe Dyson — in line with the theme of the new recording.
In the new Side-Eye project, Metheny plays it forward with the inclusion of these younger musicians.
“From my earliest days in Kansas City onward, I was the beneficiary of so many older musicians giving me a platform to develop my thing through the prism of their experience and the particular demands of what their music implied,” says Metheny. “I wanted to create an ongoing setting to feature a rotating cast of new and upcoming musicians who have particularly caught my interest along the way.”
The new “Side-eye NYC” album was recorded just before the pandemic and features pianist/organist/ keyboardist James Francies and drummer Marcus Gilmore.
As Metheny, 68, has taken the trio out on the road. The seats have been filled by a rotating cast of young musicians, of which Fishman and Dyson accompany him on this summer tour.
Metheny draws inspiration from working with innovative and genre-defying musicians.
Metheny’s collaborators bring a new infusion of life
into the bandstand.
Fishman is a multidisciplinary pianist, composer, producer and sound designer from Los Angeles. Fishman studied at the Manhattan School of Music and is a frequent collaborator of Flying Lotus, Thundercat and Louis Cole.
Dyson, a Berklee College of Music graduate, joins the band on drums from New Orleans and has toured and recorded with artists such as Dr. Lonnie Smith, Nicholas Payton and Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah.
On the rich eight-track new album, Metheny features new originals and a few re-invented original works from previous albums, such as “Bright Sized Life” from of his 1975 debut, and “Timeline,” a song he wrote and performed with Michael Brecker and Elvin Jones.
Metheny stays current with what is shaping in music.
When talking about collaborators he likes to play with, Metheny says he is looking for excellent technical players who further qualify in their “flexibility, maturity, humor and resilience.”
Most importantly, he is looking for players that have great listening skills, which is highly required to participate in the improvised journey Metheny travels on night after night.
To watch Pat Metheny perform live is to experience a unique musical snapshot in time, executed masterfully by a professional improviser.
In this latest version of Metheny’s trio, he covers a wide spectrum of modern soundscapes that are unique to any project he has issued in the past.
Tickets and information available at thegrandwilmington.org and patmetheny.com.