Pat Metheny talks jazz
20-time Grammy Award-winner Pat Metheny is easily one of the world’s best-known guitarists and the rarest of things — a jazz superstar.
Metheny, who turned professional at age 15, continues to explore different approaches and instruments to achieve his creative visions.
Certainly no stranger to combos with strong rhythm sections that feature drummer Antonio Sanchez, bassist Ben Williams and multi-instrumentalist Gilulio Carmassi, Metheny has not featured a reed instrument in a band before this group for over 30 years.
That he selected the marvellous tenor saxophone player Chris Potter makes the Unity Group all the more vital.
“Reed players such as John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and Sonny Rollins have played such a role in defining what the basics of this music are, and they are all reed players,” said Metheny, who brings his Unity Group to Vancouver on Monday in support of its new album, Kin (←→).
“Mention guitar and you’ve got a whole different impression of what that means, sonically-speaking. It can encompass the guy in Megadeth with a wall of amplifiers and distortion pedals or a camp counsellor around the fire singing Michael, Row That Boat Ashore. Having Chris in the group means that sax component is always there and connects it all.”
Of course, any of his groups will be defined by the rhythmic intensity. The title track of the new disc is a prime example with its layered percussiveness.
“The drums are everything in any kind of music that has them and any time that there is a name on the marquee, it’s really the drummer who is the one making it happen,” Metheny said.
“They define the music from the groove to the intensity to having it all fit in the pocket. Everyone else winds up trying to place things rhythmically in their playing.”
Recently the guitarist recorded an album of solo recordings for John Zorn’s Masada project. He said that working with the composer’s particular brand of rhythmic interests was challenging in how it proved both familiar and finicky.
To some degree, Metheny thinks that might be a good description for much of the music being made by jazz players today, who all grew up in what he calls a post-Don Ellis world. The late American jazz musician Ellis was renowned for his experimentation with unusual time signatures and leading such groups as the Hindustani Jazz Sextet.
“For those who thought the set list last time in Vancouver was all over the place, be ready for it to be even more so this time,” Metheny said.
“This band is a revelation for me with an ideally matched set of musicians I stumbled upon, and it’s quite exciting to be involved in a group that can do all that it can do. Plus, we are far better together now.”
Given the guitarist’s track record of great units, it’s probably safe to believe that the Unity Band show, presented by Capilano University, will be an improvising gem.