The only musician in the world to win 20 Grammy awards in ten different nominations, Pat Methany has been generous with experimentation before. But his new album, which episodically follows the spontaneous melodic lines of Jimi Hendrix, is able to break this record as well. It is not for nothing that critics and fans are increasingly calling Pat Metani a wizard. And he is happy to try.
A rare artist who loathes releasing predictable, albeit hit, albums, this time he took a great interest in synthesizers. His Side-Eye NYC contains eight compositions that claim the status of a new audio encyclopedia of experimental and guitar jazz. Actually, nothing else was expected from Metheny, who performed in Russia and is remembered for the fact that he changed five guitars in one department (one of them was even 42-string!).
And if someone thought that Pat had already demonstrated the top of his skills in a dramatic skirmish with pianist Brad Meldau or later on the overly comfortable Day Trip album, then it’s good that the music lovers were mistaken. After all, the restless guitarist, eternally in search of all new sound aesthetics, the excitement of mixing genres and the search for new harmonic and rhythmic solutions, left in the new album from his former, perhaps, only one thing – the corporate sound.
And the rest of the 67-year-old virtuoso, it seems, has once again started anew for himself. First of all, he has saturated his new material and old hits with analog synthesizers, which are considered not the most popular instrument even in the free jazz style. But Metheny, it seems, wanted to create now a new jazz of megacities, and it was synthesizers that helped him add urban contrasts to the music, and the feeling of knowing new spaces.
The equilibrium of timbres and moods begins rapidly – with the fourteen-minute novelty It Starts When We Disappear. And for this Metheny uses an alternating composition of musicians, in which there are stars of the level of keyboardist James Francis or drummer Marcus Gilmore, and occasionally – newcomers. Synthesizers sometimes create a semblance of the sound of an orchestra, or a feeling of the bustle and nerve of a big city. And the pulsating, multi-layered sounds, enhanced percussion and bass lines of the keyboards meanwhile become yet another adventurous occasion for the next disheveled or soulful guitar solos …
At the same time, blues, soul, and elements of spontaneous jam on the organ appear fragmentarily in the album. There is also funk that is once again becoming fashionable. But Metheny, as usual, is closely within the current stylistic framework, therefore, in the album there appear unceremoniously, but attractively pushing each other, and post-bop, prog-rock and again – his favorite Latin, seasoned with mesmerizing polyphony and spontaneity of African folk.
But the best track of the disc, perhaps, is still Lodger, intonationally and in spirit continuing the courage of rebelliousness in the psychedelic rock of Jimi Hendrix and his hit Little Wing. By the way, this track is one of the favorites of many stars: it is also performed by Sting, Stav Wai, Jeff Beck, Paul Gilbert and others. Moreover, this wing takes everyone to different musical elements and fantasy flights.
Rock, funk and jazz complement each other more and more creatively every year. This is a common trend of the current and last seasons. And just to predict exactly what each next album by Pat Metheny will be is still impossible …
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