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Review: Pat Metheny at the Paramount Theatre
Guitarist Pat Metheny’s concert Wednesday night at the Paramount Theatre was a musical happening of the highest order - a jaw-dropping confluence of jazz, technology and visual art. Think you know Pat Metheny? Think again.
You’ve heard of Jimi Hendrix, the Band of Gypsys? This night was all about Pat Metheny and his Band of Robots.
The sensation was straight out of the 22nd century: Metheny composing, choreographing, conducting and collaborating in the company of an industrial-sized virtual jazz orchestra. A one-man band like you’ve never seen.
Metheny started the night intimately, organically, visiting delicate acoustic landscapes from “Beyond the Missouri Sky” and “Bright Size Life” - even as he was flanked by xylophone/keyboard/calliope-looking musical furniture that sat mysteriously silent.
Then, four songs deep, a curtain rose, revealing a three-story scaffolded tower, six huge boxes on each level, filled with instruments. Drums, snares, traps, bells, cymbals, an exotic array of percussion instruments.
With that, Metheny launched into “Orchestrion,” an expansive, picturesque jazz symphony in five movements, the room filling with sound as his virtual orchestra sprang to life. Metheny’s music has always had a rich sense of panorama, of landscape. He loves exotic sounds, textures. And so it was in “Orchestrion,” with his virtual band (which he also calls Orchestrion) approximating marimba, chime, pipe organ, whistle, piano, all manner of Asian, African and South American percussion.
It was a wonder to look at, too - a hyper-modern musical art installation, with pistons pumping, mallets bouncing on keys, pin-pricks of white light pulsing from the scaffolding each time Metheny activated an instrument in his wall of sound.
Metheny performed for two-and-a-half hours - playing seven, eight different guitars through the evening while taking on the role of bandleader, soloist, programmer, improviser, accompanist all in one. The music often had a sweep, a textural energy, familiar to fans of the Pat Metheny Group, with exhilarating changes in tempo and rhythm and tone.
At one point, Metheny noted to the audience that the sensation for him, in some settings, was like playing guitar in front of a futuristic scroll player piano, one with a refined sense of dynamics. He also confessed the first question people often ask is “Have you lost your mind?”
Metheny’s virtual jazz orchestra can’t do everything. It can’t replicate the spontaneous human dance of listening-and-soloing of bebop, of small combo jazz. With his orchestrion, Metheny improvises, listens to himself, solos in response to his own solos, and so on: It’s a different kind of dance.
Yet Metheny’s music moves. It satisfies, intensely, in a textural, orchestral sense. And it’s infused with the joy of an artist who seems forever young in his passion to try new things, to see new ways, to take new journeys. The man was busting jazz barriers when he played the Armadillo World Headquarters more than 30 years ago - and so it is today.
The Paramount audience clearly loved it, the show punctuated with frequent standing ovations to the very end, when Metheny closed with the 1978 gem “Sueno con Mexico” - the orchestrion technology allowing him to play two guitar lines at the same time.
“Thank you,” Metheny said to the house at one point. “I know it took a leap of faith for you to buy this ticket.” What an exhilarating leap it was.
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Comments
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By Brad
April 15, 2010 9:33 PM | Link to this
Pat Metheny is without a doubt one of my all time favorite artists but last night’s performance was one I simply could not take and so I had to walk out.
The opening acoustic pieces were outstanding but when Metheny unveiled that his back up was nothing more than computerized arms tapping cymbals and keyboards I felt the air flow right out of the Paramount theater, or maybe it was just me and the depth of my disappointment.
I didn’t realize till that moment that as incredible as Metheny is, all along it wasn’t just him, it was their music and without the addition of his equally incredible set of back up musicians it’s no longer the music I, and many others, wanted to see.
I stepped out of the theater to clear my head and within minutes my entire party of 7 stepped out. We all stared at each other. I had purchased the tickets so no one wanted to tell me they didn’t want to stay any more till I opened my mouth and confessed my disappointment to which everyone else shared great relief. Pat, I do hope someone shares this with you and you return soon to Austin to stage a performance along the lines of what I think many had hoped to see……….
By Pat D.
April 16, 2010 12:26 PM | Link to this
Re Brad’s comment: Pat made you think, didn’t he? Isn’t that the primary job of an artist? Mission accomplished, I’d say.
By Eric Singer
April 16, 2010 12:40 PM | Link to this
As the Director of LEMUR, the group that created most of the robotic musical instruments for Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion, I was thrilled to be a part of this project. To see video and more of LEMUR’s musical robots and the music we create with them, see lemurbots dot org
By jimmi
April 17, 2010 9:17 AM | Link to this
Hmmm. Rather closed minded there Brad(the commentor). That was one of the most amazing concerts I have ever attended in my 40 years or so of concert-going. How refreshing to see an artist his age, who is still stretching. If you had stayed you would have learned that was not just a bunch of computerized machines, but an extension of Pat and his guitar. Open your mind Brad.
By LennyFree
April 22, 2010 10:39 PM | Link to this
This is probably the most important concert event of the 21st century to date. This is the first truly new musical landscape I have heard in many, many years - and the only musician I can imagine who could pull this off is Pat Metheny. To hear of someone walking out on this performance begs the question, didn’t they do ANY research into what this performance was going to be? Hear the record? Read any of the dozens and dozens of interviews Metheny has done about it? And finally, if one couldn’t understand the artistry of what this is, that person doesn’t deserve it anyway. Same for their friends. The other 1600 of us that stayed saw the most interesting show that has been in Austin for quite some time and one that will certainly go down in history as a “I was there ” moment. Great review, Brad. You really captured how great it was in your words.
By Bill S
April 26, 2010 8:31 AM | Link to this
Brad, I think you might have enjoyed the evening if you had done your homework - Pat said right up front that this wasn’t a “normal” concert. Metheny’s imagination + ingenuity has produced the most original music in recent memory. I think you fail to appreciate that ALL of the music was, indeed, produced by Pat. Sorry if you missed the point, and missed the incredible improvisation he created live. This show qualifies as “Top 2 Ever” for me. Genius at work, er, play!