Part I
Life can be so weird! I’ve known about Pat Metheny since my mid-teens. The first album I had by him, or rather The Pat Metheny Group, was the live Travels. That was waaay back, in my teens.
I liked it, but not as much as a lot of other stuff I pursued more devotedly. Whether that was Led Zep, Thin Lizzy, Joni, Waits, Beefheart, Monk, Brubeck, Miles, ‘Trane, Weather Report, Santana or even, I dunno… Van Halen, Maiden, Slayer!
Then, many, many years later, a good pal turned out to be a proper Metheny nut. So I’d regularly hear various things by various Metheny projects. But somehow, even though I liked it, I was never captured by it. There were occasions I’d hear Metheny stuff I loved: Missouri Sky, with Charlie Haden. The trio with Larry Grenadier and Bill Stewart.
But there was also stuff I was less keen on, like his white noise thing, the one with Ornette Coleman, and the stuff with the world music vocals. On top of all this, Lyle Mays’ choices of keys and synth sounds kind of put me off.
It sounds weird to say it. But all told, whilst I liked Metheny’s grinning hippie doofus vibe, I just wasn’t very receptive. It was like I wasn’t ready, perhaps? Or maybe I just hadn’t heard the right stuff?
Whilst writing for Drummer, now sadly defunct, I wrote an article on Bob Moses, and Bright Size Life for one of my monthly Recycled pieces. It’s a great album, with Jaco on bass, and I love it. But still the good ship Metheny hadn’t docked in my heart.
All that has now changed, in a matter of days. I’ve just acquired the first two PMG albums, and the subject of this rather long-winded intro and review… New Chautauqua. And lo, it is good. Very, very, no… sublimely good.
All just Metheny, on a variety of guitars, plus some electric bass. Every single track is a thing of great beauty. My first spin of the disc was out driving with my wife. She didn’t like track three! Back home, listening to the whole thing on headphones I was in ecstasy. It’s mostly a very mellow, melodic affair.
I won’t bother analysing it here in any detail. It’s just a beautiful collection of original guitar music that combines elements of several genres. But, as much as I love music both as a listener and a musician, and I often like to ‘unpack’ what I’m hearing, I don’t really care to do so here.
Instead I just want to bathe in the aural gorgeousness, and surrender myself to it. And, frankly, that’s a good sign! The music compels me to listen. And it rewards me with beauty and feeling. Sometimes I enjoy trying to articulate exactly how this might be happening.
But New Chautauqua is, strangely perhaps, a literal but very polite injunction to, borrowing from and adapting Zappa ‘shut up and listen to the guitar’. I could try to describe the various pieces. And maybe at some point I will. But right now the joy of discovery is upon me.
My recommendation would be to to just listen to this. And if anyone reading this knows of anything along the same lines, by Metheny, or anyone else, please let me know.
…..
Part II
Well, it’s later the same evening. And after a third listen to this amazing album, I felt moved to do exactly what I didn’t want to do in Part I, and give a blow by blow account of this truly astonishing album. In fact this segment has become, more or less, my Amazon UK version of the review.
Wow! What a great album. Six quite varied pieces, all of which are unique and original, and yet all of which share various qualities.
It’s all just Pat Metheny, on a variety of guitars, overdubbing layers, including a bit of electric bass. As well as your normal electric and acoustic six strings, there’s the slightly less common 12-string, and a much less heard 15-string harp guitar! And it’s all instrumental.
All the pieces are pretty mellow. Tracks one and two, New Chautauqua and Country Poem, very accessibly so. The first and title track is perhaps the most PMG on the disc. One could easily imagine hearing the Mays, Egan, Gottlieb crew fleshing this out, and it still having much the same vibe.
After the upbeat energy of the strum-fest that is New Chautauqua comes the more laid back Country Poem. The folksy vibe comes to the forefront here, with Pat’s lithe nimble scuttling fingers picking away beautifully, the bright acoustic tone, and the homely chordal and melodic aspects of the music really rooting it in the Midwestern soil.
The near ten minute third track is in fact two pieces; Long Ago Child / Fallen Star, and both are a little bit weirder, more ‘out there’. But still gentle, delicate and beautiful. Over his long, prolific, multi-faceted career Metheny has ranged far and wide over the musical map (and even off it here and there). This combo’ is modernist ambient art music, of sorts.
Hermitage brings back the bass and a more accessible conventional harmonic and melodic landscape. And, like the evocative track names, Metheny’s music is very much like sonic landscape painting. And it’s a wistful romantic landscape at that. A landscape of the heart and the mind.
Sueño Con Mexico shimmers like light on water. Whilst the music draws on folk, rock, jazz, and all sorts of other sources, it really defies easy categorisation. And instead of some confusing minestrone, in which all sorts of undigested lumps of different matter compete confusingly, Metheny has thoroughly digested his ingredients, and the whole is a deliciously rich stew, a glorious synthesis of all manner of flavours. Incredible!
Proceedings wrap up with Daybreak. Is that odd, perhaps? Or have we just passed a dream filled night of musical enchantment? In which case it’s a perfect title. After many overdubbed pieces, the last gem appears to be a line solo guitar. But wait? All of that was a kind of plaintive prelude, presaging a final ray of joyful overdubbed sunshine!
One thing I love about this disc, amongst many, is how the ECM visual aesthetic, the song titles, and Metheny’s music itself, all partake of a magical synergy.
Truly an embarrassment of riches. The diversity, and yet the homogeneity? Incredible range and scope, and yet all within a harmonious spectrum that shares that Metheny signature warmth. Phenomenal! I’m dumbfounded by how rich and beautiful this album is.
This album has definitely jumped right to the number one spot in my heart right now. I’m blown away. I wish there was a lot more music like this. Can’t recommend t it highly enough. Metheny… what an artist you are!