It has been a while since I wrote something on my blog. I have been working on its appeareance and now and then I have the urge to write something, but have not devoted the time to it. I feel comfortable with the way it works now, so I can feel free to post.

For me, Pat Metheny is a very special kind of musician, there were times when I couldn’t get past his sound to the music underneath and I joked about it being hardcore elelvator music. I guess at times, I still feel that way although these days having broken through his sound into the substance, I can celebrate its softness as he does.

One of the first Jazz CDs I picked up was when I was 18 was Jack DeJohnette’s Parallel Realities, I didn’t know much about it all back then, I just had Kind Of Blue and knew I needed to experience more.

I love that album – At the time I wasn’t aware that the fantastic synth I heard was actually Metheny and his guitar. It was a long time before I came around to Metheny’s music – I spent a lot of time exploring Jack DeJohnette and Herbie Hancock after that album, Jack DeJohnette is one the most musical and intelligent composing drummers and I followed his work through Miles and many other greats he worked with.

I would joke about how working with others was the best thing Metheny ever did – A little mean without really giving him a decent listen.

I think around 2006-2007 I saw Speaking Of Now live on DVD. I was surprised by its challenging harmony and detail. I bought the CD and fell in love with it. This is in my opinion the benchmark for Metheny, the highlight in his broad recording career.

In this album, he seemed to able to define the space very clearly and within it create mountains and valleys of musical intensity. All I have to do is pick this up any time and I can explore this space again with joy – if it were a bit more open and less composed like say, Jan Garbarek it may be able to achieve greater, more realistic highs and lows, however being so clearly defined a space, it can be picked up any time, unlike Jan Garbarek whom I love with a passion as well.

It took me a while to find an album from him that matched Speaking Of Now, I knew there must be a few because people referred to Pat Metheny Group like they defined a new genre and many did not think much of Speaking Of Now.

Its true Pat Metheny’s work in the 90′s was not that great, It wasn’t until recently that I find that my find of Parallel Realities was actually a very lucky one to start out with.

Then I found Letter From Home – It did it for me all over again – similar well defined space, maybe a little more open than Speaking Of Now and filled with passion and grace. If only I knew of this music at the time, The late eighties was a bad time for pop music, The nineties saw us divide and search outside the norm, but no one at the time seemed to point to this music.

Letter From Home is one of my favourites up there with Speaking Of Now and its just great for portable listening – filled with emotion and story telling it can lift you up on difficult day. I have listened to it living in Sydney and then in my transition to living in China, this emotionally fulfilling music made it a lot easier to deal with the changes around me.

After this I found Still Life – many seem to value this more highly than Letter from home, but I find that although its fantastic especially Minuano, its not really close to the consistent highs of Letter From Home.

Now I have just discovered the original Pat Metheny Group album from 1978. This is where it all started and its earnestness gives it a special quality in retrospect. I love this one too and I have only just started on the journey with it.

I hope Pat Metheny returns again to try and extend the spaces he defined in these great albums – a space that no one else has managed to achieve, both light and floating, yet deep and crystal clear. I don’t know if anyone has told Pat, but crystal clear music is his forte. Pat may want to try different sounds but I think there is so much more he could do with the type of sounds and spaces he gets on the above albums that I would love to hear another 10 in a similar vein.

His latest solo work, Orchestrion is a masterpiece and its a very special recording. I feel maybe Pat Metheny wants to extend the spaces I am refferring to above, but maybe he feels he can make it even clearer waters by using the advanced technology of his Orchestrion. The title track is amazingly uplifting and its precision certainly increases the spatial definition, but maybe I just miss the earnestness, the innocense and adventure of the early Pat Metheny Group masterpieces where the musicians lifted each other up to heights no one musician could do on their own. Maybe Pat Metheny feels the same way. I hope he can muster the passion and focus to do it again.

Tags: Music by Corley
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