Pat Metheny interview (long)
Peter Huggins
Entertainment Writer
The 2003 Grammy winner for Best New Age Album will perform his first
ever concert in Daytona Beach on Tuesday. He's also the guy who, with
his band, won the Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1998.
Of course, most of the 17 Grammys collected by guitarist Pat Metheny are
scattered across diverse jazz categories. Fans, peers and critics alike
acclaim Metheny as part of the reigning triumvirate of jazz guitar,
along with John Scofield and Bill Frisell. The Kansas City native and
New York City resident took time out from his two young children
recently to talk by phone about the status of jazz guitar, jazz snobs'
reaction to his New Age win, and his song "Is This America? (Katrina
2005)" from his new trio album, "Day Trip."
Q. I'll ask you the same question I asked John Scofield some time ago.
You've got Grammy Awards and critical and fan acclaim, yet I wonder if
you believe guitar gets the respect it deserves in jazz?
John and myself and Bill Frisell have really gone right at that issue
for most of our careers. I think the results speak for themselves --
just look at the records (we have) made over the last 30 years . . .
To tell you the truth, what horn players in the last 30 years have
really made an impact? To me, at last there are three guitar players.
When it comes to trumpet, for me there's no one. Saxophone -- maybe Mike
Breaker. Piano -- maybe Brad Mehldau. If we're going to really hold it
to the highest, highest standards.
Honestly, it's a larger issue to me than jazz guitar. For me what jazz
has shown, it does not accept nostalgia. When people try to play in a
previous style, you gotta go "That's nice" then you walk out the door
and you don't think about it again.
When jazz really connects and has a lasting, timeless quality, it's
ironically when it's coming from deep inside a time in a very real and
tangible way. With myself, John and Bill, I think we all sound like now.
We don't sound like 1940. We're not trying to sound like 1940. Or 1968.
I think the three of us are deeply dedicated to that quest -- of trying
to reconcile the possibility and range of sounds that have emerged in
this current climate with the whole idea of Charlie Parker and John
Coltrane and the people who have really defined the language in the sort
of Shakespearean or James Joyce level.
When I think about the three of us, and what the research is that has
gone into exactly the question you asked -- OK, what can the guitar be
in jazz? -- I feel very proud actually of the progress in the last 30
years.
Q. Did you get any flack from jazz snobs for "One Quiet Night,"
especially after it won a Grammy for Best New Age Album?
I've been getting flack form everybody for my entire career one way or
another. You will find it impossible to find any contingent who agrees
on what the best records are, or what direction.
Everybody who likes one thing considers that obviously the choice.
"Well, everything else pales in comparison to 'Question and Answer' or
"Everything after the first group record sucks." Maybe the next guy is
like "You made that classic record a couple of years ago, 'Quiet Night,'
and my wife gave birth to that record. And of course that's the record
that really put you on that map." To which I just go, "Uh huh."
One of my favorite visual artists is Paul Klee. He did sculptures, he
did incredible paintings, and within the realm of his paintings he did
all kinds of different things stylistically. But when you go to a Paul
Klee show, everything single piece is unmistakably him.
That's the thing for me. I try really hard to honestly represent the
music I love. Unfortunately for me, it's not something that can be
described in one sentence. It's not that simple (chuckles). It's
ultimately unclassifiable. At the same time it's as jazz as jazz can
get. That's a dichotomy that's puzzling and hard to manage in a
sound-bite culture.
Q. Was there a particular image or news report that spurred your
instrumental "Is This America? (Katrina 2005)"?
Like everybody in the entire country, I'd come home every night and turn
on CNN and see those images and try to reconcile that with the idea of
this country that is constantly bragging how great we are, and without
question one of the wealthiest countries in the world.
Yet that's a question we all have to ask ourselves: Is this America? You
look at those images -- somehow that doesn't sit with the idea that we
hope people perceive what our country is.
The song is not happy. It's not really sad. It's not really anything
other than a question. To me that's a worthy thought.
Q. The song order of "Day Trip" almost makes it seem like a concept
album.
That is a big issue for me, the order of the tunes, the artwork and
everything. We are entering this era where the whole idea of making
records is under the gun, or under the pressure of the culture by way of
the Internet, downloading, blah blah blah, all those zillion articles
we've all read about that.
But to me there is lost in that discussion what making a record actually
is. To me it includes the music, but not only the order of the songs but
the spaces between the songs and how long those spaces are and the art
work and the kind of paper you use -- all of those things that make up
what it is to be a recording artist that have been profoundly
represented over the past 70 or 80 years by people who made great
records.That's something that is very different than downloading a bunch
of ones and zeroes at a very reduced fidelity.
Q. I was intrigued by the "Pat Recommends" section on your Web site --
which includes "The End of Faith" by Sam Harris and "The God Delusion"
by Richard Dawkins.
I think they're worthy items to add to the collection of anybody who's
considering the ramifications of where we're at right now and how we got
where we are.
Q. Do you consider your music to be in anyway spiritual?
That's really what it's all about for me, that idea of manifesting into
sound the things I see and feel. Playing the guitar is ninth or 10th on
the priority list. It's really about ideas, trying to come up with a way
of representing those ideas, most of which are in the cracks. You know?
It's sort of like "What is music?" You can't see it. You can't taste it.
You can't draw a picture of it.
It's this thing that kind of comes from the cracks in our consciousness,
our existence. I count on the fact that I'm going to walk out there on
stage not really knowing exactly what's going to happen. Yet at the same
time, I have this window that I've worked hard to develop that allows me
to look between those cracks and bring things from that
outside-of-human-consciousness zone into sound.
That's what we do as jazz guys. That's what artists in general do: Bring
things into relief in the face of the hard physical world that come from
outside of that world.
My experience in that department, doing it every night for 35 years, has
led me to a place where whenever I see people claiming to know things
that I find unknowable, it stops me in my tracks now, while before I
just might have accepted that.
There's a certain kind of humility I find consistent with being able to
play at a high level that causes one to ask a lot of questions.
Q. Are you concerned people will see those books on your Web site and
think, "Oh, Pat's an atheist" -- that they will have that
black-and-white kind of response?
If they do, I really wouldn't worry about that one way or the other
because to tell you the truth, I'm a musician and that's the only thing
that really matters. The music speaks for itself. It's kind of a cynical
thing: Whatever anybody thinks about anything, fine. Musicians have no
more or no less -- and I mean both of those things in a pretty strong
way -- you don't have any more of a reason, but you also don't have any
less of a reason to talk about the stuff that everybody talks about.
if mail to this address bounces, please forward to :
guitarmaniax 'at' msn.com
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" I`d dance with you Maria, but my hands are on fire " - Bob Dylan
" We had a knob, and all we had to do was turn it." - Les Paul
Grins, Peter
http://community.webtv.net/guitarmaniax/THISISTHE
http://community.webtv.net/guitarmaniax/unfinished3
acmost
"Peter Huggins" <guitar...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:28814-47...@storefull-3311.bay.webtv.net...
lukejazz
>
>
>
> if mail to this address bounces, please forward to :
> guitarmaniax 'at' msn.com
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> " I`d dance with you Maria, but my hands are on fire " - Bob Dylan
>
> " We had a knob, and all we had to do was turn it." - Les Paul
>
> Grins, Peter http://community.webtv.net/guitarmaniax/THISISTHE
>
> http://community.webtv.net/guitarmaniax/unfinished3
>
> http://community.webtv.net/guitarmaniax/PhotoReserveNo1
>
> http://community.webtv.net/guitarmaniax/MYFRIEND
Thanks for the post - I really enjoyed that.
Luke B
www.lukejazz.com
sri883
any tighter and imaginative than this. Even though it wasn't a sell out
venue, Pat made believers of many. Oh, buy the way! The Pat Metheny Group
played Daytona Beach in 1979 with the American Garage tour. I know, I was
there and have the T-Shirt to prove it. Even Pat couldn't remember.
"Peter Huggins" <guitar...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:28814-47...@storefull-3311.bay.webtv.net...
Derek
torn by public opinion or opinions within the jazz community.
I find that stance admirable. So many seem to get side tracked by
outside6 influences, both financial, and cultural.
I am not a huge fan of his music, but I really like him and admire how
hard he has worked to get where he is today.