Blues for Fallen Angels, Review of Pat Metheny's Album
BLUES FOR FALLEN ANGELS
Hi folks, I felt that I just had to spread the good word about
Pat Metheny's new album Tap John Zorn's
Book of Angels Vol.20. It’s a
mindblower, so sit back and listen.
Other musicians, including guitarist Marc Ribot, sax player Joe
Lovano and the jazz/funk trio of ‘Medeski, Martin and Wood’ have already
recorded their interpretation of John Zorn's ongoing opus. Pat Metheny's very
personal take on the six songs he covers is remarkable, and he plays all the
instruments except for drums, which are handled by his long term collaborator
Antonio Sanchez. His piano and acoustic bass work in particular is striking.
There is a great deal of surprise in this often quite astonishing music. The
opening track, ‘Mastema’, with almost organic splutterings of heavy fuzz guitar,
and a relentless and twisted dose of sitar-guitar melody, evokes shades of the
early work of the Mahavishnu Orchestra. A song such as ‘Sariel’ conjures up a
range of tonal experiences –from neo-Eastern references to the
‘Spaghetti-Western’ music of the great Ennio Morricone. And his clever adoption
of a cascading bandoneon on ‘Albim’ invokes the continental flavour of an
imaginary, or to-be-wished-for, Paris. Mature artistic expression: Metheny’s
palette is vast, and we can say that he has clearly moved far beyond the use of
a simple brush. As Pat writes in the liner notes, he was 'using whatever tools
seemed right for the task at hand'. Banished for now is that bucolic and
countrifed world where Pat created some of his most traditionally beautiful and
pleasing music. His guitar sound throughout the album is both refreshing and
near-chaotic, or refreshing because it is near-chaotic. The CD is a haunting
dreamscape, replete with electronic fizzes and the eldritch sounds of backwards
guitar and cacophonies of human voices lost to some strange despair.
On the album's final song, ‘Hurmiz’, he doesn't even actually
play a guitar other than to make it produce atonal glimpses of barren fretwork,
or he will be strumming the strings above the nut next to the headstock, opting
instead for primal and hypnotic piano, the playing of which is reminiscent of
early avant-garde jazz. Some tracks explore the Eastern sounds of Jewish Klezmer
music, utilising his signature dexterity with both the steel string and nylon
string guitar. Of course Pat has a history of playing supposedly 'difficult' and
unconventional music. He has recorded and toured with Ornette Coleman, played
with fellow guitarist of the absurd Derek Bailey, and of course has recorded the
monumental 'Zero Tolerance For Silence'. On the song 'Phanuel' he produces a
delicate balance between naked beauty and something like sheer terror, with a
lovely pastoral melody offset by infusions of electronic anguish. His landmark
recording of Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint seems a world away
–a netherworld away– from this new album's provocative and almost disturbing use
of electronic effects and musical head trips.
His musical direction here of course won't come as a surprise to
those of us who have been closely following his work all these years. I first
saw Pat play with his first Pat Metheny Group in Cleveland Ohio in the summer of
1981 'just as he was on the cusp of becoming hugely successful. That evening,
the auditorium was three quarters empty, and we were all allowed to sit closer
to the stage. They opened with either ‘San Lorenzo’ or ‘Across The Heartland’,
and I knew immediately that this was a New Sound, and that Pat and his band were
true musical innovators and a breath of fresh air amidst their contemporary
jazz-rock counterparts, many of whom managed to sound only virtuosic in a cold
and calculating mathematical manner. The band played, joyously, for three
hours. Later in my life I had the good fortune to meet and interview Pat Metheny
for the Irish magazine JazzNews, back at the time of the release of Letter From Home, around
1989, and I found him to be unassuming, personable and very friendly. He
didn't even mind being photographed holding my Takamine guitar, even though,
then as now, he was being sponsored by guitar giants Ibanez. I remember that on
that particular day of the interview, I had been toiling away at my 'day job',
teaching in a London primary school. When I arrived at the Royal Garden Hotel
and met Pat, I explained to him that I had been working. He immediately invited
me to have a restorative meal and said he would join me. Cue club sandwiches,
potato chips/crisps, and Coke! We chatted about all manner of things for at
least an hour, and I felt then that here was the jazz world's number one bona
fide superstar, in terms of sales and critical acclaim, and the man is just so
down to earth, with no Ego. Like me, he has small hands, unlike say, John
McLaughlin who has large hands and who I also met.
To return to his new album,
Tap Book of Angels Vol 20, I feel strongly that this is the best new music I
have heard in a long while. The music is stunning, and he achieves a remarkably
visceral and industrial sounding guitar tone that most successful rock,
alternative rock and heavy rock bands would kill for.
Well done Pat !!
Hi folks, I felt that I just had to spread the good word about
Pat Metheny's new album Tap John Zorn's
Book of Angels Vol.20. It’s a
mindblower, so sit back and listen.
Other musicians, including guitarist Marc Ribot, sax player Joe
Lovano and the jazz/funk trio of ‘Medeski, Martin and Wood’ have already
recorded their interpretation of John Zorn's ongoing opus. Pat Metheny's very
personal take on the six songs he covers is remarkable, and he plays all the
instruments except for drums, which are handled by his long term collaborator
Antonio Sanchez. His piano and acoustic bass work in particular is striking.
There is a great deal of surprise in this often quite astonishing music. The
opening track, ‘Mastema’, with almost organic splutterings of heavy fuzz guitar,
and a relentless and twisted dose of sitar-guitar melody, evokes shades of the
early work of the Mahavishnu Orchestra. A song such as ‘Sariel’ conjures up a
range of tonal experiences –from neo-Eastern references to the
‘Spaghetti-Western’ music of the great Ennio Morricone. And his clever adoption
of a cascading bandoneon on ‘Albim’ invokes the continental flavour of an
imaginary, or to-be-wished-for, Paris. Mature artistic expression: Metheny’s
palette is vast, and we can say that he has clearly moved far beyond the use of
a simple brush. As Pat writes in the liner notes, he was 'using whatever tools
seemed right for the task at hand'. Banished for now is that bucolic and
countrifed world where Pat created some of his most traditionally beautiful and
pleasing music. His guitar sound throughout the album is both refreshing and
near-chaotic, or refreshing because it is near-chaotic. The CD is a haunting
dreamscape, replete with electronic fizzes and the eldritch sounds of backwards
guitar and cacophonies of human voices lost to some strange despair.
On the album's final song, ‘Hurmiz’, he doesn't even actually
play a guitar other than to make it produce atonal glimpses of barren fretwork,
or he will be strumming the strings above the nut next to the headstock, opting
instead for primal and hypnotic piano, the playing of which is reminiscent of
early avant-garde jazz. Some tracks explore the Eastern sounds of Jewish Klezmer
music, utilising his signature dexterity with both the steel string and nylon
string guitar. Of course Pat has a history of playing supposedly 'difficult' and
unconventional music. He has recorded and toured with Ornette Coleman, played
with fellow guitarist of the absurd Derek Bailey, and of course has recorded the
monumental 'Zero Tolerance For Silence'. On the song 'Phanuel' he produces a
delicate balance between naked beauty and something like sheer terror, with a
lovely pastoral melody offset by infusions of electronic anguish. His landmark
recording of Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint seems a world away
–a netherworld away– from this new album's provocative and almost disturbing use
of electronic effects and musical head trips.
His musical direction here of course won't come as a surprise to
those of us who have been closely following his work all these years. I first
saw Pat play with his first Pat Metheny Group in Cleveland Ohio in the summer of
1981 'just as he was on the cusp of becoming hugely successful. That evening,
the auditorium was three quarters empty, and we were all allowed to sit closer
to the stage. They opened with either ‘San Lorenzo’ or ‘Across The Heartland’,
and I knew immediately that this was a New Sound, and that Pat and his band were
true musical innovators and a breath of fresh air amidst their contemporary
jazz-rock counterparts, many of whom managed to sound only virtuosic in a cold
and calculating mathematical manner. The band played, joyously, for three
hours. Later in my life I had the good fortune to meet and interview Pat Metheny
for the Irish magazine JazzNews, back at the time of the release of Letter From Home, around
1989, and I found him to be unassuming, personable and very friendly. He
didn't even mind being photographed holding my Takamine guitar, even though,
then as now, he was being sponsored by guitar giants Ibanez. I remember that on
that particular day of the interview, I had been toiling away at my 'day job',
teaching in a London primary school. When I arrived at the Royal Garden Hotel
and met Pat, I explained to him that I had been working. He immediately invited
me to have a restorative meal and said he would join me. Cue club sandwiches,
potato chips/crisps, and Coke! We chatted about all manner of things for at
least an hour, and I felt then that here was the jazz world's number one bona
fide superstar, in terms of sales and critical acclaim, and the man is just so
down to earth, with no Ego. Like me, he has small hands, unlike say, John
McLaughlin who has large hands and who I also met.
To return to his new album,
Tap Book of Angels Vol 20, I feel strongly that this is the best new music I
have heard in a long while. The music is stunning, and he achieves a remarkably
visceral and industrial sounding guitar tone that most successful rock,
alternative rock and heavy rock bands would kill for.
Well done Pat !!