Pat Metheny’s One-Man Band: “Orchestrion”
TweetPat Metheny released Orchestrion this past week. If I’ve counted correctly, beginning with Bright Size Life in 1975, this is Pat’s zillionth record.
Not a full minute into the 15:48 opening cut, my jaw was already on the floor. I’d never heard him quite like this. It was identifiably Metheny, but the ensemble setting was just unreal with its incredibly tight unison runs, lightspeed tempos, and complex countermelodies. With due respect, and plenty is due, my first thought was that this jazz icon has been putting the “meth” in Metheny.
Then I watched this video on the making of Orchestrion.
Now my jaw is still on the floor, but I’m also thinking about the creative mind that’s driven to make an album this way. He's trying something entirely new, which is a rarity in itself. I wonder if Metheny is just tinkering or if he feels that, after 35 years of invention, he’s exhausted the potential of traditional music-making.
I wonder if he’s challenging us to reconsider the very process of making music. What does he hear that makes him opt for robots over humanoid collaborators? Is it a jazz record? A real-world Animusic?
Does it even matter how music is made, so long as there’s a good listening experience?
Still listening right now, and wondering what musicians out there think.
-- Rich Maloof
The Punch-In is edited by Rich Maloof, who has a long history with TrueFire as artist, educator, and producer. Rich’s body of work as a published author and Editor in Chief of Guitar magazine has been distributed and translated internationally.
Photo by Jimmy Katz / Courtesy Nonesuch Records Tweet
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February 2nd, 2010 - 21:21
Absolutely in love with the music of this album. Metheny will return to making music with humans soon enough. This album is a marvel and the complexity, as you mentioned, is mind-blowing.
February 3rd, 2010 - 15:38
Rich, your comment about music as a listening versus creative experience is very thought provoking. The book titled "This is your brain on music" addresses the dichotomy very well. I think the whole concept of "requiring" a human band for recording is traditional, given the current capabilities in MIDI driven digital sequencing. Pat is demonstrating the ANALOG capability of using the guitar as the centerpiece of the creative process of making music. Andres Segovia said that the guitar is a mini orchestra in itself because you can create any sound that any other instrument can make through it using the right technique. In Pat's Orchestrion, he is making it real.
On a side note, my own guitar playing is limited due to a day job, and night time home-studio playing and recording so MIDI through my guitar gives me the band I need to play with and record with in the wee hours. I use purely digital means of slogging through concepts taught in Truefire courses and expanding on these as a hobby. It is truly satisfying to be able to create music without commercial intent. Pat is doing what he wants instead of catering to marketing and commercial music. This is what makes it so unique and impactful.
February 4th, 2010 - 19:30
Pat Metheny is the best! Your right he's made a zillion albums. Kind of like the Steven King of jazz guitar. For an acoustic treat listen to "One quiet night", just P.M. on an acoustic guitar, terrific from cover to cover!