Pat Metheny: Secret Story - Live in New Brunswick, NJ Review

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(More customer reviews)I haven't seen all the other Metheny DVDs so I can't compare this one to any of them. I do own More Travels on VHS, which is not strictly speaking a live concert, as there was no audience present for that live performance. There are distracting "arsty" moments on that video, plus they cut to interviews and other stuff that after a while take away from the video.
There are no distractions on this presentation, just an hour and a half of great music. While this DVD is not the Pat Metheny Group, it IS live in front of an enthusiastic audience, and there was reason for their jubilation. This is a sublime performance of a great collection of tunes performed by a stellar group of players. The lineup includes the late 80's PMG sans Lyle Mays. In his place are two of my favorite keyboard players, Jim Beard and Gil Golstein. Their's is a tough job, as they had to play all the orchestral and supporting parts from a very dense studio album. They perform their tasks admirably, and together with Mark lederer and David Blamires, who also have their hands full supplying all the brass parts and adding their considerable vocal and percussion talents to the many layered textures, the sound is nearly as full and detailed as the original studio recording. Rounding out the sound is an added guitarist and Armando Marcal supplying beautiful colors and percussion. What a great show! And until now I thought I'd have to rely on my memory of that ecstatic, singular night! The sound is great, the mix nearly letter perfect. The picture is grainy and not as sharp as one would hope for a DVD, but the content is so good, this can easily be overlooked. This is a straightforward no nonsense concert video, just nine great musicians reverently and joyfully laying down some of Pat's most heartful and honest music from the happy/sad but always beautiful Secret Story CD. Highly recommended.
NOTE: It is interesting to note that Pat Metheny put the kabosh on the american release of this DVD, the reason being, he apprarently felt that the performance here was not up to his high standards. While that may be true, (there are a few minor clams here and there,) the overall performance is still excellent, if not letter perfect. This is after all, the only documentation of this historic tour and as such, the imperfections can easily be overlooked. Most people won't even notices them. You can find copies of this DVD on Ebay. It is a treasure not to be missed,especially to fans of the CD.
By the way, I have to agree with the poster who mourns the lack of DTS encoding. I would even settle for Dolby Digital-anything but crappy prologic. It says its in DD but it isn't .The sound is merely passable, and it could've been great.

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Day Trip Review

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(More customer reviews)The late jazz writer Richard Cook described Pat Metheny's enormous audience as a mixture of "progressive-rock listeners, fusion fans, and plain old lovers of guitar heroes". In other words, he manages to cover quite a few stylistic bases, but here's an album that will appeal most to the hard-core jazz listeners among Metheny's many fans.
'Metheny hooks up with his regular partners, Christian McBride on double bass and Antonio Sanchez on drums. As you'd expect for musicians who have played hundreds of dates together they're very comfortable in each other's company, with McBride's marvellously deep, rich bass really shining throughout'(BBC).
'In its early stages, "Day Trip" seems to fall into some familiar postbop traps (too much technique, overwrought themes) but it soon settles into some jubilant improvising from all three, on the kind of bluesy grooves, Latin swingers and inviting ballads that suggest Wes Montgomery has returned to life and found the hippest 21st-century world-music partners he could' (Guardian).
He dazzles on 10 new originals.
"Let's Move" is fast and boppish, "At Last You're Here" is a fine ballad, bound to become a classic - as might his bluesy "Calvin's Keys" and a bittersweet acoustic lament for flood-battered New Orleans, "Is This America?"
For technique, taste and originality, Pat's still the man.
He is alternately pastorally lyrical and hard-swinging, reminding us of his origins in the music of Wes Montgomery and Jim Hall respectively.
Apart from the unmemorable nature of some of the compositions, this is delightful stuff.
The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery
Hallmarks: The Best of Jim Hall


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Amazon.com Our job is to be deeply in the moment, says Pat Metheny. Day Trip, the first release from Metheny's current trio lineup, featuring bassist Christian McBride and drummer Antonio Sanchez, vividly depicts the group at one particularly inspired moment. As Metheny explains, We did it the old-school way. We'd been touring for about four or five years at different times and then went in and recorded, rather than making a record and touring behind it. We worked like gangbusters and finished in a day, so the title Day Trip fit. Besides, this is kind of a trip band; they take you on a journey. The Day Trip sessions were recorded at Manhattan’s Right Track studio in late October 2005 and sequenced into a ten-song set earlier this year. The album is being released in conjunction with a national tour the trio will embark upon in February 2008. Metheny already reconvened the group this fall for an enthusiastically received series of small market dates at colleges and theatres; the trio ended its preliminary run with four concerts in South Africa. Reviews from the daily U.S. press along the way have been a compendium of superlatives. The Buffalo News declared, Metheny is sharing his musical soul with the two finest musicians of their generation. The Times Union of Albany concurred: Christian McBride on stand-up bass and drummer Antonio Sanchez wove their way into Metheny’s music... and played with a telepathic virtuosity. And the Louisville Courier Journal summed up the nightly reaction to the trio’s sets: It was a collaborative tour de force that earned a standing ovation. Christian is an amazing musician and Antonio is the drummer of this generation, says Metheny. 35 year-old bassist McBride had played alongside Roy Hargrove, Freddie Hubbard and others, before stepping up to lead his own group; 36 year-old drummer Sanchez is a member of The Pat Metheny Group. On Day Trip, Metheny offers plenty of excitement in his solos and the trio cranks up the funk on "The Red One", (a version of which was previously released on Metheny’s collaboration with John Scofield "I Can See Your House From Here"). However they generally eschew flash for a more easy-going groove; McBride calls it a softer, more traditional sound. Perhaps most eloquent among these tracks is the elegiac, folk-like melody of "Is This America?" (Katrina 2005). 2007 was an exceptional year for Metheny.
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The Way Up Review

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(More customer reviews)Most artists who have more than 30 years of success behind them usually talk about that one unfinished masterpiece, the one that's swimming around in the brain just waiting to come out at just the right time. In the case of Pat Metheny, his latest effort "The Way Up" could very well be such a piece.
Consisting of a single 68-minute piece broken into four sections, "The Way Up" finds the Pat Metheny Group diving head first into unknown yet familiar musical territory. Musically, the piece is not too different from that heard on previous efforts such as "Speaking of Now", "Imaginary Day", "Letter From Home" or even "First Circle". However, there are some brilliant new elements heard in the music as well. Metheny's latest drummer Antonio Sanchez plays with more complex syncopations and has a unique style different than his predecessor Paul Wertico. The addition of the young harmonica player Gregoire Maret gives the music more of a folk flavor at times. Maret has an excellent harmonica spot which can be heard in the middle of part two of this piece. Pat's guitar work also seems to be more varied as well alternating between electric, acoustic, slide, 12-string, fuzz and guitar-synth. His playing is acceptional through the piece especially from the middle of part one to the part's conclusion. Trumpeter Cuong Vu shines with brilliance throughout the disc as well displaying a style that echoes Miles Davis with a slight hint of Arturo Sandoval and (dare I say it) Herb Alpert.
Despite this CD being comprised of a single piece of music, there is plenty to digest here. The changes of mood and texture heard throughout the piece make the 68-minute running time almost seem like nothing at all. The strong musicianship between Pat and his bandmates is sensational while the compositional structure is flawless.
Applause must be given to Pat Metheny and keyboardist/collaborator Lyle Mays for taking such a daring step and successfully pulling it off. This is Pat Metheny's definitive magnum-opus, a mountain-top acheivement for this brilliant guitar genius. Bravo.

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The Way Up represents, in the words of guitarist Pat Metheny himself, "our most ambitious undertaking ever as a group"-a single, brilliant 68-minute piece composed by Metheny and his collaborator of 28 years, Lyle Mays. Metheny has likened the creation of The Way Up to making a film, and in some respects, the album feels like a vividly rendered journey, its moods shifting like scenes glimpsed from a fast-moving vehicle.

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Orchestrion Review

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(More customer reviews)I've got tickets for Pat's Orchestrion tour in May and I'm bringing my son who is 11 and just starting out his young percussion life. I can't wait to introduce him to one of the finer things in life: i.e. Pat Metheny's Music.
Do I wish he was touring with his band? Yes. Lyle Mays and rest of the crew. I would give anything for a chance to introduce my son to that very rare treat - live especially.
After listening to the Orchestrion CD for the first time, will this be worth it? I think so. I give Pat credit for trying something like this. What the heck: a multi-Grammy winner can step out a little bit I think. I agree with some of the other reviewers that it's definitely Pat, albeit 'mechanized mallet percussion Pat'. But it's okay. It's a project that's close to him and I can imagine the experience of seeing this setup live will be quite original and fun!
The CD is not going to shock and awe you. It's solid Pat Metheny - right on the money in terms of harmonics, improvisations, tonalities, and substance; he's attempting something different here in terms of instrumental backup. I'm giving Pat a 'Hall Pass' on this one. It's decent work!! Go for it Pat!!
There are many like me who slip a Pat Metheny CD into their player while driving to work (or wherever) and are instantly transported back to some of the finer times in their lives. I'm sure I share this sentiment with many, many other people. For this I can't thank Pat (Lyle and various other contributing artists) enough. Pat has laid the background track for many of our lives and it's been a good one. The vibrations have always been filled with inspiration, order, spirit, compassion, kindness, expression, and dare I say Loving Hope. And for the opportunity to let my son feel even a single bit of this, now through this Orchestrion effort, well so be it - I am thankful.
Thanks Pat for another chapter!!! Keep it going man!!!! You make me believe in things I can't see...

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Grammy Award-winning composer-guitarist Pat Metheny s Orchestrion may turn out to be his most talked-about, argued-over undertaking. It s already his most adventurous. With Orchestrion, Metheny redefines the concept of the solo album. He is indeed the only live musician on this recording, but it s the opposite of, say, his 2003 One Quiet Night, in which Metheny hunkered down in his home studio to explore all the musical possibilities of one new guitar. Here he works with an extraordinary set-up of acoustic instruments, assembled for him by a visionary team of inventors. What they have created in collaboration with Metheny is a veritable made-to-order solenoid orchestra that includes, among other things, bass, pianos, percussion, marimbas, guitar-bots, and a mellifluous cabinet of carefully tuned bottles. Using one-of-a-kind software programs and solenoid switches, Metheny controls each instrument via his guitar and an array of pedals.Orchestrion was influenced by the primitive but evocative player-piano technology of yesteryear that has fascinated Metheny since he was a child. The player piano inspired inventors of that age to create the orchestrion, a large mechanical multi-instrument device that imitated the sound of an orchestra. Metheny brings this concept into the 21st century, composing and playing five ambitious pieces with his tailor-made, sophisticated, musically dynamic ensemble. Orchestrionics is what Metheny calls this new method of performing. The resulting album, recorded in midtown Manhattan s MSR studio after months of experimentation at home, is a marvel of the digital era, yet the record sounds beautifully, stirringly, human. In other words, timeless.To witness Metheny improvising on guitar while surrounded by these instruments, digitally triggered to play the scores that Metheny has painstakingly written for each of them, is indeed a wonder. Eager fans have already made sell-outs of the first dates of Metheny s Orchestrion tour. But hearing is truly believing: there is not a single note on Orchestrion that sounds mechanical, and some tracks, like Expansion, have a thrillingly improvisational feel to them.Metheny has gone into uncharted territory: every day in the studio with these instruments was a revelation as he began to comprehend what they were capable of musically and, more importantly, what he himself could achieve in their presence. They were not a substitute for the interaction of other players and this does not signal a shift from Metheny s other collaborative ventures. In fact, Metheny most recently proved his love for ensemble playing with his 2008 tour-de-force trio release, Day Trip.Orchestrion is all about innovation. As Metheny puts it, This experience so far has provided me with a self-imposed challenge that has proven to be enormously difficult and time-consuming, but the early results have been absolutely exhilarating. I am excited to share this project... I am hopeful and confident that if nothing else, this will be something truly unique. It feels like progress to me and has gotten some notes out of me that I didn't know were there. That is always a good thing.

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