<$BlogRSDURL$>
Sunday, September 28, 2008
  My Desert Island Discs 6
My last two choices, Eberhard Weber on ECM and Tribute to Soft Machine, have lead me to re-evaluate Pat Metheny. This has meant listening to nigh on twenty albums in the past week.

I was at what I think was his first concert in London in, probably, 1981. With a good friend and neighbour, I'd begun to explore the ECM label. Drummer John Marshall, former Soft Machine member and currently in Soft Machine Legacy, as well as Soft Machine founder member and its first drummer, but now the independent and idiosyncratic singer, Robert Wyatt, have popped up as group members or guests on ECM recordings. John, for example, was in Eberhard Weber's group Colours.

It was inevitable that Pat Metheny would pop up on my musical radar. He had recorded alongside Eberhard Weber in the Gary Burton Quintet in 1974 (Ring - ECM 1051) when he was 20; his first album a month previously was in the Paul Bley Quartet with Jaco Pastorous on bass. Jaco played on Metheny's first album as leader, Bright Size Life (ECM 1073), shortly before he joined Weather Report. A year later, in 1977, Metheny recorded what could be thought of as his first Group album, Watercolors (ECM 1097) with Lyle Mays on keyboards, as he has been ever since, Eberhard Weber on bass and Danny Gottlieb on drums.


That first gig, Pete and I were up in the gods of the Hammersmith Odeon. The group we saw that evening had either Mark Egan or his replacement, Steve Rodby, on bass in place of Weber. Like Mays, Rodby continues to work with Metheny.

I doubt that many in the packed audience had been at his first British gig, at the Bracknell Jazz Festival the year before. We didn't know what to expect and we got sublime, saudade spine tingling melodies played acoustically, hear the fingers slide up the strings, loud synthesised orgasmic group singalongs, and Ornette Coleman free-formish what was that?

Being British, we applauded politely after each piece, some of which we recognised. None of us waved cigarette lighters (which would now be camera-phones) in the air to say "Look at me, I'm at a Pat Metheny gig", something which Americans posing as audiences are prone to do.

When the group finished playing some of the tightest ensemble playing we had ever been privileged to witness, there was a silent pause, then ~ whoosh - as one ~ the entire audience stood and roared for more with that rhythmic footstomping, hand clapping, whistling and yelling which signifies that we were at a gig that would be forever enshrined in our memories.

The group came back and stood at the front of the stage looked around, looked up, their arms around each others' shoulders and you could almost hear their mutual thought ~ "What the f**k have we done here?" ~ as they realised that we had given them the ultimate accolade. I still get goosebumps recalling that magic moment.

They played another half an hour and seemed to surpass themselves. They knew we could take it.

The lovefest was, and has remained a continual euphoric gobsmack. On October 22nd 1995, the Pat Metheny Group played here in Jakarta. The gig was poorly advertised and I estimate that the 2,000 seater hall had only 500 of us; we counted 3 expats, but I do know that the cream of Indonesia's jazz scene were in attendance, folk like Indra Lesmana and members of Simak Dialog. Old softie that I am, tears of joy streamed down my face, maybe because I knew that we'd be very lucky to see him again here.

If you listen (free) to the track Third Wind from the live album The Road To You (rec. 1991), you can get a sense of euphoria too. When the group finishes playing, you can hear the audience pick up the refrain and continue to sing for nigh on a minute. Spine tingling stuff.

I can't find the URL of the web page I copied the following from, but not only does Metheny encapsulate everything I deem important in music, but he has distilled the essentials of his music, something I've probably failed to do above.

"The methods that are used to quantify music - jazz, rock, pop, black, white, American, folk, European, avant-garde, etc. - have all dismally failed as terms that have any value whatsoever for me as a listener or especially as a player. To me, about the best you could say about those tags as useful mechanisms of critical discussion is that they are superfluous. I basically love music and see it - like humanity itself - as one big thing.

I feel very happy that I have the capacity to get goose bumps listening to just about anyone playing just about anything if they are doing it at their very best. When they are illuminating something unique and important and special about that particular musical endeavor at that particular moment in their particular lives as musicians, and they would suffer greatly unless they could make that moment come alive in that particular way - that is when I dig it.

That quality can be found in the most unlikely places. And by the same token, that quality is often lacking in the places where one would most expect it to be. That quality is also elusive and mysterious, and one can rarely predict anything about it."

It is the unexpected in music that I too continue to listen out for. Metheny has played with an "overall creative pantheon of the music industry", whatever that's supposed to mean. Among them: Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Mike Brecker, Ornette Coleman, Jack Dejohnette, Donald Fagan, Bill Frisell, Charlie Haden, Herbie Hancock, Roy Haynes, Billy Higgins, Dave Holland, Joni Mitchell, Joshua Redman, Sonny Rollins, John Scofield, Nana Vasconcelos, Marc Johnson.

As of 2002, the "Pat Metheny Songbook" contained 167 original scores and, as much as I like the majority of the Pat Metheny catalogue, if I had to choose just the one album, I would have to take The Road To You. It's not my favourite - and I'm not even sure that I have one - but for recapturing the magic of the rare moments when musicians and audiences are as one, I know of nothing better.

Labels:

 

postID=3469521501355496830

7:00 am
|
Alien Thoughts from Home

Home Thoughts from Abroad

Interactive World Time

Indonesian Dictionary

Indonesian Acronyms

Indonesian Slang

Learn Indonesian

Currency Converter

Email Me

The WeatherPixie

5 Day Forecast

Get Firefox!




Disasters
  • West Sumatra Earthquake Aid Agencies
  • Sidoarjo Mud Volcano
  • Reports on Crashes and Sinkings

  • Living in Indonesia
  • Tempo
  • Bugils News
  • Jakarta Post
  • Jakarta Globe
  • Down To Earth
  • Loads of Advice
  • Inside Indonesia
  • Green Indonesia
  • Hobson's Choice
  • Gunung Bagging - New - clamber volcanoes
  • Indonesian Music
  • Indahnesia Online
  • Maps of Indonesia
  • Indonesia For Kids - blog
  • Green Group Links
  • Faces of Indonesia - blog
  • Photos of Indonesia
  • Indonesian Publications
  • International Crisis Group
  • Indonesian Engaged Travel - blog
  • Outside The Indonesian Box - blog
  • Indonesian Corruption Watch
  • News and Events Aggregators
  • Indonesia's Vegetarian Restaurants

  • Living in Jakarta
  • Culture Shock - Jakarta - 'my' book
  • Bataviase - loads of info in Indonesian
  • Rujak.org - for a sustainable Jakarta
  • Jakarta Kid - stories of street kids
  • Jakarta Events - as it says in the title
  • Map of Jakarta
  • Jakarta Nite Out
  • Jakarta Nite Out - for Francophiles
  • Jakarta 100 Bars - as it says in the title
  • Jakarta Java Kini - upmarket magazine
  • Jakarta Urban Blog- as it says in the title
  • Jakarta Green Map
  • Jakarta Daily Photo - as it says in the title
  • Jakarta? Been there!
  • Protecting Jakarta Bay
  • Nightlife - for single guys - check the forums
  • Jakarta Restaurant Reviews - as it says in the title

  • Living in Bali
  • Hector - at Bali Times
  • Bali Spirit
  • Bali Expat Forum
  • Nusa Lembongan News
  • I've Been To Bali Too Blog - defunct but still good stuff

  • Education Matters
  • Education 21
  • Performing Monkeys
  • Yayasan Goodwill International

  • Pre-Independence History
  • 1941-1942
  • A Family Tale

  • JAKARTASS ADS
  • Del Boy - my multi-talented co-author
  • Hotel Rimbo - a mate
  • Ethos Travel - Son No.1
  • Indo Fair Traders
  • Organic Vanilla
  • Merdeka Coffee
  • Pekerti Nusantara

  • Indonesian Blogs in English
  • Top Blogs
  • Merdeka - aggregator
  • Elyani - good stuff
  • Therry - good stuff
  • Om'Bak - group thoughts
  • Yosef Ardi - business gossip
  • Treespotter - his serious blog
  • Milk Tea Girl - poems and stuff
  • Bitching Babe - another slice
  • Café Salemba - ekonomi +
  • Enda Nasution - The Guv'nor
  • Aroeng Binang - a neighbour
  • Harry Nizam H. - legal practitioner
  • Ethereal Shards - youthful ponderings
  • Muli's Commune - defunct but good links
  • Isman H. Suryaman - not a 'Fool'
  • Rasyad A. Parinduri - ekonomi
  • Tasa Nugraza Barley - returned from the USA
  • Indonesia Anonymus - infrequent but always good

  • Indonesian Expats
  • Naz - a "12.5% Indonesian" in Norway
  • Bleu - in Malaysia
  • Anita - in Scotland
  • Maya - in Antibes
  • The Writer - in Denmark
  • Spew-It-All - in Australia
  • Jennie Bev - in SF
  • Rima Fauzi - in Belgium
  • Nadia Febina - in Angola
  • Society of Spectacle - in Berlin
  • Overseas Think Tank - for Indonesia
  • Indonesians Living Abroad Forum - as it says in the title

  • Expat Bloggers in Indonesia
  • PJ Bali - oil worker
  • Mat Solo - Malaysian oil worker
  • Jenny Q - an expat wife
  • Dr Bruce - retired teacher in Bali
  • Spruiked - Brett's take on things
  • Indoprism - an expat family
  • Java Jive - original photoblog (now in the Phillipines)
  • Amor Fati - good links
  • Metro Mad - Jakarta Globe columnist
  • Rob Baiton - back in Oz
  • Jakarta Kid - about street kids
  • Green Stump - in Kalimantan
  • Most Curious - née Betty Loves Blogging
  • The Mad Rotter - Henk loves Indonesian music
  • Duncan Graham - journo archives
  • Hardship Posting - more wtf
  • Indonesia Matters - loads of stuff
  • The Opinionated Diner - and NZ music
  • Patrick Guntensperger - has opinions on current issues

  • Selected Aseanist Blogs
  • SARAwho? - Southeast Asia Aggregator
  • Pelf-ism is Contagious
  • Brommel - usually in Indonesia
  • Friskodude - SF travel writer
  • Klong Walking - an Addick in Bangkok
  • Agam's Gecko - musings from Thailand

  • London Blogs
  • Diamond Geezer
  • London Daily Nature Photo
  • London Bloggers Tube Map

  • Other Fave Blogs
  • Aangirfan - who is s/he?
  • Ad Busters - ecological economic sense
  • Samizdata.net
  • Strange Games
  • The J-Walk Blog
  • Environmental Graffiti

  • Charlton
  • Doctor Kish
  • Inspector Sands
  • Forever Charlton
  • Official Charlton site
  • Addickted to Blogs
  • Ex-Charlton forward in Belize

  • I'm an Aging Hippie
  • Man
  • XTC
  • World Changing
  • MoonJune Records
  • Canterbury Sounds

  • My Youth
  • Blackheath
  • Charlton Lido
  • Charlton House
  • Woolwich Ferry
  • Greenwich Park
  • Severndroog Castle
  • Overlapping Memories
  • More Overlapping Memories
  • Map of My Stomping Ground

  • Put Your Feet Up
  • Biscuit of the week
  • 50's British TV Nostalgia
  • Hello Children, Everywhere

  • Enter your Email

    Subscribe with Bloglines

    Locations of visitors to this page

    Blog

    eXTReMe Tracker



    Listed on BlogShares

    Personal Blogs - BlogCatalog Blog Directory

    ARCHIVES
  • May 1998
  • March 2004
  • April 2004
  • May 2004
  • June 2004
  • July 2004
  • August 2004
  • September 2004
  • October 2004
  • November 2004
  • December 2004
  • January 2005
  • February 2005
  • March 2005
  • April 2005
  • May 2005
  • June 2005
  • July 2005
  • August 2005
  • September 2005
  • October 2005
  • November 2005
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • December 2013
  • Creative Commons Licence