Pat Metheny: Speaks of Now

#3 AAJ: Thanks for taking the time to do this, Pat. Aside from the new music what tunes are you doing this tour?
PM: The book for this band is so big and there are so many of the older tunes that are still so much fun to play that it makes it really hard to decide exactly what will be in a given setlist for a tour like this. The challenge will be to squeeze it all into the 3 hours that we have to play each night. I have not really figured out yet which of the older tunes we will play, but it is always fun to see how the old ones work next to the new ones – sometimes they have a whole new life.
AAJ: Long set. You’ve now played a good portion of your work for extended periods in trio, quartet, septet and larger formations, including the groups of others (Mike Brecker, Roy Haynes), even the big-band collaboration this summer. What arranging allowances do you have to make for playing the same music in larger or smaller formats than originally arranged for? And do you prefer one over the other?
PM: Erlend is a very talented arranger and the charts that he wrote were not for a traditional big band instrumentation. There was a string quartet, 4 woodwinds and a large rhythm section. What I liked about what he did was that he took the pieces and really made them his own.
But that kind of a special project playing situation is rare in the mix of things that I usually do – mostly I get to play with my own bands, which is something I consider to be a real privilege. The varieties of formats and instrumentation’s that I am able to work in bring out different things and offer the chance to work on different aspects of things that I hope to get together someday. The group thing is in many ways the most open ended because so much of what it is has no real precedent. we are often dealing with music and instruments that could not have existed during any previous era because of the advances in musical instrument and studio technology, and we seem to be more and more on our own in terms of the way we are addressing issues of form and the kind of obliteration of style that seems to be part and parcel of what living in this period of time seems to indicate. Yet, at the same time, regardless of context, my basic goal is pretty simple actually – to try to find something in each setting that seems resonant and true and musically attractive to me. Whether it is in a trio, or the group or a special project big band or whatever else is almost secondary.
#9 AAJ: How would you describe the new disc? What can new listeners expect and longtime listeners expect that’s new or different about this one?
PM: I would describe it as a fairly major leap for us, although it is maybe a more subtle than overt one. From start to finish, the music was just pouring out of everyone. And like with most of our records, you have to listen to it a bunch of times to get all the things that are going on, the subtexts and details and the ways the pieces are developed. as far as ‘new and different’ goes, it all speaks for itself in the language of music – there are many aspects of the melodies, the kinds of forms that we use and the way the whole band (particularly the rhythm section) plays together that is quite unlike previous editions of the band or previous records. Having said that, I think we have always been interested in focusing on developing our own vocabulary of sounds, harmonies and maybe most of all, melodies. Our band has always remained ‘backwards compatible’ with itself – by that, I mean that the things that we did from the gitgo are still useful and pertinent to everything that has happened since. I don’t think we have ever rejected anything from a previous period and said, ‘wow, what were we thinking? We will never do anything like that again’. The things that we dig about certain harmonies and chords I think have only deepened through the years. and we have learned a lot over the years, that is for sure.
But, the whole idea of having to continually make things ‘new and different’ is an interesting one. Obviously, there have been places along the way where I have come out with records that sounded almost nothing like the previous ones. I think that sets up an expectation that it should always be like that, that anything less than that is somehow just that; less. For me, the utmost thing in any of these records – or in any musical endeavor for that matter, whether it is a gig or a practice session or whatever – is to address the emotional aspect of what music offers us. Everything for me is about the feeling. all the instruments are tools for us to hopefully reveal emotions and feelings that are distinct and have some resonance. When doing interviews like this, or whenever words and music intersect, there is always a tendency for that to get lost in the parallel grammar of description. It is easier to talk about form and what kind of strings and which recording technique was used and who is new in the band and all that than it is to just acknowledge that all the verbiage in the world pales in the face of one really well played note. everything that goes into music making for me is important, from the way the music is conceived and designed and executed to the fun that we have while making it. But all of that happens in the service of, hopefully, capturing a true feeling that could only be expressed the one way that it is expressed in that particular moment of sound.
AAJ: This is the first time in a long time that you’ve come back on tour after having changed not only the ‘peripheral’ members (for lack of a better term) but also a core rhythm section group member. How have things changed with the absence of Paul Wertico after 15 years (’83-’98) with the group?
PM: Our new drummer, Antonio Sanchez, in many ways became sort of the catalyst for the whole thing this time – he is just an unbelievably great musician and his presence really made us think about things that we hadn’t really considered before as possibilities. Every time I got together with him to play, I would find myself listening to the tape over and over again and hearing different things in the way he approaches everything each time. Steve and Lyle immediately had the same sensation. for me, he is one of the best drummers to come along in a long time. He also is a very positive person with a great heart. He and Steve and I did a couple of clinics in Spain this summer and the way he interacted with the students and the clarity that he was able to communicate fairly complex ideas reminded me exactly of the way that he plays – it all goes together. I would love to do a duet record with him someday.
AAJ: There seems to be more of an intimacy/immediacy that comes across in this mix and a bit dryer, less effected guitar sound which seems to allow for more of a different, unexpected kind of presence in the mix.
PM: Cool.
#4AAJ: I noticed on the new disc (“Speaking of Now”) what comes across as a bit of recycling of partial themes of your own. This might not be a first, but are you surprised when people say they recognize previously recorded events in new music?
PM: I don’t think that argument could be supported in actual musical terms – especially if you are talking about specific thematic material. To me there is nothing ‘recycled’ about any of these pieces. Yes, there is a vocabulary at work there that has been refined over 20 some years of work and I would like to think that after all of this time there are elements of the points that we have been trying to make over all that time that are by now (hopefully) somewhat recognizable – but beyond that in real musical terms, no.
AAJ: Much like Picasso said, “Try everything, but only once”, you’ve said that you try to change the methods of the way you compose with each project. Where did the inspiration for the music come from this time?
PM: We recorded everything together at the session – then afterwards, Steve, Lyle, myself and Rob Eaton the recording engineer for the session did our usual process of picking what we thought was the best stuff from what we played. there was a period where things were refined before we came back to mix including the addition of some extra parts by Lyle and myself – but that has been the case for many years now.
As far as where the inspiration comes from – that is a hard one. In general, for me, the lineup of musicians that we gathered for this band set up a bunch of new opportunities and the music seemed to gravitate towards those places. But in general, it is hard for me to quantify or even identify inspiration – the goal is always just to try to come up with stuff that sounds good to us, that satisfies the fairly high standards that we have set for ourselves over the years as listeners and fans of music. Ultimately, you are just trying to find the good notes.
AAJ: Can you discuss what the current band members are bringing to both the new and previous music? What made you choose these particular players?
PM: They are all very strong individuals, something that I really wanted this time around, especially after we got Antonio in the band. Richard Bona is someone who is basically a kind of unprecedented musician. His range of musical expressions are so unique to who he is as a person. The main attraction for me about him was his voice, it is just so beautiful – but as it turns out, he is the perfect percussionist for us as well. It is really special that Richard will be taking time away from his own thing to do this tour with us. It seems like this is just something he has had an interest in doing since hearing the band years ago and I feel very fortunate to have him and I am really excited to be out on the road with him in the band as well. And Cuong Vu is someone who brings a special kind of originality to the mix.
I suppose I have always sort of been looking for a horn player who I felt could offer something to us that went beyond the obvious. When I heard Cuong on the radio one night, I just had to find out who it was – it was unplaceable and completely unique – Cuong is great. And, as it happens, he is a fantastic singer too – and his blend with Richard is something special, that was not something we could have predicted. Cuong’s personal relationship with the music of this band had a real impact on me too as we were putting this music together. He kept talking about how much he loved certain records in that late 80’s period and how he had listened to them over and over again. It kind of made me go, hmm, maybe I should go listen to those ones again!, which I actually did, kind of filtered through Cuong’s enthusiasm for them. He kind of reminded me of some melodic priorities that I had during that period that I may not have been focusing on as much in recent years.