Pat Metheny : American Garage

SUBJECT:	What was your reason to start listening to Pat Metheny Back to Subjects
Chris1 Jun 19 2019 at 7:45 PM	How did you begin listening to Pat Metheny? Was it a friend who had a new album to share or was it a certain song on the radio during a long highway drive that caught your attention. Maybe someone taking you to a concert for the first time to check out a new sound or was it something different that began your journey?
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thirdwind Feb 17 2020 at 12:51 AM	I’m about Pat’s age, so I was perfectly poised to dig his music. After a revelatory live concert with the Mahavishnu Orchestra, I became jazz-curious. Larry Coryell lit my fire, inconsistently. I discovered Keith Jarrett, so PMG was like a combination of the two. While I was looking for new jazz bands, Pat and Lyle snuck in through the side door of Rock, hand in hand with Joni Mitchell and David Bowie. Those collaborations were played on my favorite rock FM station by day. On Sunday night, there was a jazz show that played them once a night. I was hearing their names more and more, so I started seeking them out. It’s amazing to remember how, for a decade or so, their music was hear all over the place in the USA.
JamesInNC Feb 11 2020 at 2:38 PM	"Are You Going With Me"...live version...1983...in a record shop...late afternoon...when the sun shines sideways...everything stopped...Simply magnificent.
hman01 Feb 11 2020 at 9:06 AM	Lyle Mays! A huge reason among many for why I started listening to Pat. R.I.P. Lyle.
bhal Feb 01 2020 at 1:13 AM	I was about 8 when Wes Montgomery passed. My mother had the basement radio on and I kept hearing promos for a memorial retrospective later in the day. This was basically an easy listening am station that played his hits. Dear old mom must have noticed my ears prick up and left the radio on after dinner. Man, I was blown away by his dexterity, tone and feel. Flash forward to the Mid-70’s when my high school daze were in full swing, I got into Django and was drawn into his playing and open to just about anything. Pat Martino caught my attention first, but then I heard about Metheny on local FM AOR rock radio program Midnight Fusion and all that Jazz on Sundays. Bright Size Life hit my ears and had I found my guy. He was young and capable of moving me as the others had and, there was a freshness to his approach. I spent the next 25 years following him thru all the ins and outs, diggin’ each step of the way. However, It had been about 14 yrs between seeing Pat w/Christian McBride, David and Antonio Sanchez on the 20th anniversary tour for Song X ’til I caught up w/Side Eye last March. Once again I was smitten. The old material re-interpreted in the keys and drums trio resonated anew. The joyous noise still moves me.
molesoulsandal Jan 31 2020 at 10:49 AM	i was thinking yesterday about why i love PM so much, and of course there are many, many reasons (lemmee count da ways), such as the manner in which he and his compatriots have enriched & advanced the musical/artistic landscape here on this planet that we are provided to humanly inhabit . . . . . but i was re-reading an interview that pat did in 2001 w/jazziz magazine in which he was asked how he ’would like to be remembered’ . . . and his answer was: ’it doesn’t matter’ . . . . . . . . . and that may very well be the biggest reason why i love pat metheny.
kejur Jan 28 2020 at 1:39 PM	At college I met a saxophone major that turned me onto Jazz. He played Michael Brecker’s first album as a leader and I was curious who the guitarist was?...
mugsy Jan 09 2020 at 2:48 PM	I was in Graduate school in 1980. I became friends with a fellow student and one day he invited me to hang with him at his house. When I walked in, he was playing 80/81 and the rest is history as they say. I was hooked! I immediately went out and bought just about everything I could find by Pat and the PMG. To this day, it would be very unusual that i don’t play at least one of Pat’s CDs every day. I have a good commute to work - so I am always listening to my music. A few years later, I saw the Still Life Talking tour in Berkeley, LA and Sacramento! It was like I was reliving my Dead Head days of following the band from city to city. I did the same thing with The Way Up tour, and many others.
vandelay451 Jan 03 2020 at 1:46 PM	I was at my girlfriend’s birthday party in 1985. The host of the party walked in, told everyone to sit down while she unsheathed an album. She then demanded everyone close their eyes, and take a listen. I obeyed and fell into a trance for the next 9 minutes and 18 seconds. I had never heard anything like it, I was enthralled. When I opened my eyes, everyone had left except me and the person who put the record on. We looked at each other like we had just experienced something life-altering. I married her three years later, and hardly a day goes by that we don’t enjoy Metheny... to this day. Oh.... the song... ARE YOU GOING WITH ME?.
Aristide Dec 07 2019 at 4:32 PM	I bought his records at a music store and listened to it. My girl friend was into opera and didn’t like it. I told her to leave and stayed with the music. Saved me a lot of trouble.
jeansteinmann Nov 18 2019 at 5:46 AM	It was the mid to late 70s. I ran a mail order service in the UK for independent record labels and first heard Pat via the Gary Burton Ring record on ECM and the Bley/Pastorius/Metheny/Ditmas record. I can’t remember which came first. Then it was Bright Size Life and like St P below after the Shaw Theatre concert there was no turning back!
ranhiu Nov 15 2019 at 11:21 PM	I heard New Chautauqua on The Mellow Home K108 in Sacramento when they would play artists like Pat, Jean Luc Ponty, etc. along with Rock and other kinds of music back in the late 70’s. There was another station in Sacramento called KSFM Earth Radio FM 102 that I heard Jaco and immediately bought the White Album. I was impressed (and still am) with Pat’s ability to play in different styles and genres. I think that’s why I’ve been such a huge fan since that time and when I got a job working at Tower as a jazz buyer in the mid 80’s had the pleasure to sell Pat’s music and meet the group a few times was a great highlight in my life!
St P Nov 15 2019 at 3:08 AM	At uni in fall 76, got friendly with some other jazz fans. One had Bright Size Life, bought it because of Jaco but thrilled to the guitar tyro. Then in March 77 saw the original PMG at Shaw Theatre London. They were their own roadies. They opened with Phase Dance and then San Lorenzo. A whole world of possibilities opened up for me and many others that night.
facing west Nov 14 2019 at 4:04 PM	I heard an hour-long ECM promo piece that included a range of great stuff and some conversation with Pat. I think it was hearing New Chatauqua the really blew me away, but the whole thing was an electrifying experience. You could really tell that Pat was not only an incredible talent, but that he had deep insights into music and even life in general. A moment I’ll never forget.
Stybba Oct 02 2019 at 6:41 AM	The year was 1979 and I was a senior in high school. New Chautauqua had just come out and it was being played on the radio. I immediately fell in love with tunes I heard so I went out and purchased the album. Unfortunately for me I didn’t actually go to a Metheny concert until the Imaginary Day tour. Long ago an acquaintance of mine told me that Pat Metheny sucked live so that is why I hadn’t seen any of his shows until Imaginary Day. I regret listening to this advice to this day. It seems I missed a lot of good shows.shows.
broph Sep 14 2019 at 9:36 AM	Back in the early eighties I took up learning guitar as a teenager. I told my teacher at one of the local music stores that I wanted to learn Van Halen and other rock bands songs. He said sure, and showed me a few things. The next week before the lesson was over gave me a cassette with music on it. On the case it was labeled with songs from Al DiMeola, Allman Brothers, Mahavishnu Orchestra, The Dregs, Michael Hedges, Pat Metheny and a few others. In my world up until then I thought VH was everything, but with that one cassette it opened me up to so many different styles of music and musicians that shaped what I have been listening to current day.
webtrotter1958 Sep 09 2019 at 8:53 PM	Year of 1980, Buenos Aires, downsouth in Argentina. I buyed a issue of DownBeat magazine, that regularly was imported. Pat was in the cover. I liked the guitar (his 175), the kind of rocker image, and then I get "American Garage" , a brazilian edition (?). That was the departure of a travel since then to right now. I`ll go with two of my children to a show scheduled March 13th. Just buyed the tickets in advance.
tomm Sep 07 2019 at 3:06 PM	My brother is 10 years younger than me. He got interested in guitar from watching one of my best friends in high school play guitar while I sang. My brother turned into a pretty good guitar player and he and I both got interested in jazz while in college. He heard PMG and recommended it highly to me. (Since I don’t play an instrument - yet anyway! That bass is still on its rack in my home office! - and just sing, I got him started on Michael Franks in return). "First Circle" was my first exposure and still my favorite PMG song. My brother and I still go to every show Pat does in the Dallas/Fort Worth area together and we’ve both seen him in other cities when the other wasn’t around. Still our favorite musician!
frinyc Sep 06 2019 at 12:28 PM	In 1977, I was at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There was a guy on my dorm floor who played the PMG album for me; I got hooked on Phase Dance and San Lorenzo. Then there was the Santa Barbara Joni Mitchell concert that blew me away. That guy in Madison has no idea what a gift he gave me!! Sure wish I knew who he was.. Dude...thanks man.
john Jul 15 2019 at 4:46 PM	A jazz festival west of London in the summer of 1978. The Pat Metheny Quartet were the last but one act on the Saturday evening. Ornette headlined the following day. First thing I’d ever heard from Pat were the opening chords of Phase Dance. It was like being hit by lightning (metaphorical of course).
HAMBONE Jul 09 2019 at 11:01 PM	I live in SE Pa and Philly had some great FM radio stations and Deejays in the 60s and 70s. I remember hearing Pat’s BSL album on a progressive rock/jazz program called Crosscurrents on WMMR. After that I heard San Lorenzo and Phase Dance on the same station and bought both albums. That’s all it took. I was at the first show PMG played in Philly in 78 when Pat asked Jaco’s father to stand up and be recognized before they played the song they named after his son. What a great era that was for jazz and progressive music! There will probably never be another like it again.
bxl12378 Jul 04 2019 at 8:56 AM	Switching channels on the TV back in ’84 (think it was still a black and white tv-set) I came across this concert they were showing of a band I did not know. It was love at first sight. I ran to get my old audio-cassetterecorder and was able to record some 30’ of the gig (Jazz à Juan-les-Pïns). Listened to it a million times and still got it. In the mean time I must have about every record Pat ever played on. First time I heard him play live AYGWM, the song of my life, I cried. That tune has been with me all over the world ever since. So many memories...Be well.
MarcNebo Jul 03 2019 at 1:18 PM	I was so long ago I can’t remember how I got turned on to Pat. May have been an article or review in Downbeat. First live show was maybe 1977 or 1978 at Amazingrace in Evanston IL. It was a small coffehouse that booked everything from Jazz, Rock, Folk, Blues and more. When I went backstage at a Pat Metheny Unity Group show in Chicago in 2014(?) Pat raved about the venue and said he never saw anything like that again.
seadog Jul 02 2019 at 8:39 AM	naut, saw your other post. Hahaha, gotta love senior moments buddy! Yup, it was Francis Field House and was over two days. The Rockport show was one of about a dozen or so acoustic shows he did at the end of the Side Eye Tour. All in small little out of the way places throughout New England. I don’t think any of them held over 300. The Rockport hall is just a magnificent little jewel box of a theater with world class acoustics. He said it was the first time he had ever done a solo acoustic tour of any type. He always wanted to try it and said Leo Kottke was his inspiration, ever since they used to play with him back in the day. Said he always wanted to see what it was like to just sit and tune his guitar while talking, playing and telling stories to the audience. After more than 40 years it was a dream come true concert...pure joy!
Oystein Jul 02 2019 at 4:49 AM	Browsing through the news section in my local record store back in -78, I stumbeled over this cool, white album cover with no picture, only names of people that I`ve never heard of. After hearing the first seven seconds of the first track, I was hooked and has been so ever since.
Chris Digger Jul 01 2019 at 7:59 AM	In the 90s my brother lend me a Cassette tape of the Travels-Live Album. What i heard was astonishing: beautiful melodies, harmonies, Uptempo tunes and wonderful ballads. This was the Soundtrack of my life then and i was hooked by tunes like Farmer´s trust, The Fields-The Sky, San Lorenzo, Straight on Red... And that was topped later on by the release of Secret Story what made me a fan since then.
naut Jun 28 2019 at 6:55 PM	seadog, I was at that show in ’76 at Wash U too. Seems that it was in a field house or gymnasium, though I’m not sure which. Someone else at the Garage was at that show as well, and we chatted a little bit about it years ago. Don’t recall his handle. I didn’t know Pat was doing solo shows like at Rockport. I kind of thought he was primarily doing Side Eye trio shows. Must’ve been sublime. Glad you caught the show.
seadog Jun 28 2019 at 9:31 AM	Multiple coincidental paths let me to what is now pretty much an obsession. First, growing up in Boston the buzz about Pat was pretty well established around town in the mid-seventies. While attending Washington Univ in St Louis in Oct of 76 I first saw Pat with the Gary Burton Quartet during the ECM Festival of Music concert along with Eberhard Weber, Jack DeJohnette, John Abercrombie, Ralph Towner and more. A life changing concert for sure. While a student in Europe, a bunch of us were reading the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. There is a chapter in it about the creation of the Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York and its philosophy. A year later when New Chautauqua was released, after reading a review of it and a curiosity about the title, I just had to immediately go out and buy it. Now over 40 years later, too many live shows to count and over 800 PM tracks in my itunes account, I still find his music as fresh and blissfully enjoyable as that first time in 76. In fact last month, his concert in Rockport MA, I can only describe as an early summer night’s dream come true. Just Pat, a guitar and a stool before 300 stunned fans. The most intimate, emotional Pat concert I’ve ever seen and a top 5 for sure. Pat that just sat on a stool, told stories, talked to the audience and tuned his guitar while revisiting all his solo acoustic material from New Chautauqua, One Quiet Night, What’s It All About, Missouri Skies and more. When he came out for an encore and laid down the first notes of the Beatles And I Love Her there was an audible sigh from the audience… gorgeous! It took days to get the smile off this old man’s face.
Dortboy Jun 27 2019 at 4:18 PM	It actually began somewhere around 1980, when a local news program used the opening of "(Cross The) Heartland" as its intro music, and I was drawn to it but unable to find out what it was. A few years later I had a friend who belonged to one of those record-and-tape clubs that sent him a "selection of the month," which he decided he didn’t like and gave it to me. This was "Travels" on cassette, which I loved, and I bought "Rejoicing" and "First Circle" when they came out, soon acquiring all the ones that had come before (when I heard "American Garage" the first time and recognized the opening notes I cheered :D). I’ve bought ’em all within a week of their release date ever since. Dortgirl and I have tix for a Side Eye show later this year - this will make my twenty-sixth PM concert since ’89 - excited to hear the new trio but a little sad that my tradition of going to the record store for The New Pat Record seems to be a thing of the past. Cheers from Porkopolis y’all...
franksexton Jun 26 2019 at 2:03 PM	he’s a ecm artist works and works 2 - found used at a local record shop
harn Jun 24 2019 at 3:38 PM	I saw Pat on a BBC television program in the UK called “The Old Grey Whistle Test” around late ‘84/early ‘85 and I was intrigued, having also seen his name in various guitar magazines. I was attending a gig (can’t quite remember what but definitely a rock gig) at the Manchester Apollo and noticed an advert for PMG tickets. There were some really cheap seats right at the back, so my friend and I decided to take a gamble and buy a pair. The concert was on May 4th 1985 on the First Circle tour and it was life changing, I was absolutely mesmerised from the moment they walked on through the audience to the last notes of the encore. I’d never experienced anything quite like it. I collected all the records and waited patiently for their return to the UK which happened two years later on the Still Life Talking tour at Hammersmith Odeon. The difference that time was that I knew all the music and again it was a deeply moving experience.
foxesfred Jun 22 2019 at 11:43 AM	It was 1978/9. I tired of rock and wanted to return to improvisation type music. The Jam Bands were no longer doing it for me. Came across Wichita Falls in Tower Records (Tempe, AZ).Did some research and next thing I know wore that LP out. The band came to town and I was sold forever!
naut Jun 22 2019 at 9:51 AM	I walked into a record store in New Orleans in 1978 and said, "Whatcha got that’s good in new jazz?" He handed me the vinyl white album and the rest, as they say, is herstory. Simple as that. And I’ve been a fiend for Pat ever since.
tiny_tim Jun 22 2019 at 9:31 AM	I played B-flat trumpet (highly loved Maynard Ferguson, Bill Chase, Doc Severinsen, Don Ellis, Chicago Transit Authority) and my best friends were in band growing up grade school through Uni days. One particular fellow band friend was a Flute, Piano, Tenor Sax, and Synth player who had his finger on the pulse of records and artists, and was very much a highly gifted musician. Barry was very much into music and still is. How he knew about things music back in the pre-internet days still has me baffled. I used to go over to his place and we’d listen to albums in his room which was filled with all sorts of instruments including a patch-cord Moog synthesizer. One of the offerings he had was Lyle Mays’ 1975 recording with the One O’Clock Lab Band at North Texas State...Lyle wrote many of the tunes on that Grammy winning album. So one day I rock up to Barry’s place in 1977 and he said have a listen to this. As soon as the stylus hit those vinyl grooves my life took a turn and I have been a follower of Pat Metheny. It was that first track...Phase Dance.....the rest as they say is history. It’s been a most wonderful journey.
Gyuri Jun 21 2019 at 4:03 AM	It was in fall, 1984. The first track I was exposed to was AYGWM - it was like a lighting bolt. I was at a college camp and they played PM as wake-up music every morning. What a pleasant lighting bolt to wake you up. I became addicted immediately. And then I first saw him in concert in Budapest in 1989 on the Letter From Home tour.
patsfan Jun 21 2019 at 1:48 AM	Great question. Back in the 70’s I listened to anything I liked, mostly jazz oriented.. By the early 80s, American Garage, As Witchita Falls, Offramp, Beyond the Missouri Sky,, etc hooked me and from then on I was addicted . Only a few people I have ever met shared my jazz focus. .... that always puzzled me. I don’t understand people’s music tastes or lack thereof. How could you NOT like Pat’s music .... if not other jazz musicians ???
Raskolnikov Jun 20 2019 at 3:42 PM	in 2002 I get married. My wife Raffaella and I traveled on our honeymoon, "Speaking of Now" with us ... another chapter and the album whose title was so close to the changing of my life at that time. Like a sort of parallel evolution... sorry for that. Now I’m back to silence. A big hug men
Raskolnikov Jun 20 2019 at 3:20 PM	I forgot to tell that now I’m still playing in different musical situation (from Symphonic or Opera orchestra to Jazz, Rock or so on.. and... I’m becoming an apostle, I’ve got my "Metheny Project" trio. We play all "Bright size life" album and many other tunes from Pat music, in some case rearranged for trio.. like "Au Lait", "Phase Dance", "Sometimes I See", "So may it secretly begin", or other tunes like "Timeline" or "The Red Ones"... That’s GREAT TIME for us.
Raskolnikov Jun 20 2019 at 3:09 PM	It was during 1978... I was a young musician (percussion) always in search of beauty and something that could thrill my soul. One day a friend of mine came to my home with four LP of mr. Metheny He probably remember a particular day in Italy; In Carrara at Parco la Padula (it was in the nineties). I remember that there was a problem related to the fact that their trucks will not be able to get on the road to reach the place of the concert and that was how they were sent directly to Rome for the concert the next day. They found the location beautiful and the people that was there for them so they decided to play the same in some way. Together with us (an unforgettable day) these wonderful people went out of their way to remedy the musical instruments necessary for a standard-style evening ... this was the indelible signature of the greatness of their soul. My life then was a succession of music played, listened to always with me everywhere. Hello from Luca
molesoulsandal Jun 20 2019 at 1:03 PM	being from missouri i had a musician friend from up around lee’s summit who alerted me about pat, back when the world was young, not to mention a whole lot friendlier . . . .
carlosrubio.79 Jun 20 2019 at 12:22 PM	My dad always played on car trips, The road to you cassette. Those were the first time I heard Pat.
hman01 Jun 20 2019 at 10:25 AM	It was in 1980, a friend of mine had a copy of The White Album. It was of course on vinyl as CDs were not in public circulation yet. He put it on the turntable and the first thing I heard was San Lorenzo. I was hooked and remain so to this day!
BobSmith1 Jun 19 2019 at 11:54 PM	Back in the fall of 1978 I used to stay up into the wee hours listening to various FM stations and there was one, a "quiet storm" type, that used to play (unbeknownst to me at the time) San Lorenzo as the end-of-show tune. I actually would stay up late (the sign off was around 4am) just to hear this tune that at the time was the most amazing thing I had ever heard. It was like a distillation of everything I’d been listening to up to that point in time, from The Beatles to southern rock to Di Meola, RTF, Boston, Fleetwood Mac and everything you can think of that a 20 year old wannabe guitarist might have been into. But of course totally unique and soulful and graceful like nothing I’d ever heard! I’d known of Pat, sort of in passing, at this point, and had a suspicion that this was one of his songs. One late afternoon I called the station and asked the on-air guy if he knew who that was at the end of that late show and he said Pat Metheny. A few months later I got the White Album but it wasn’t until 1982 that I got to finally see them live.
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thirdwind
Feb 17 2020
at 12:51 AM

I’m about Pat’s age, so I was perfectly poised to dig his music. After a revelatory live concert with the Mahavishnu Orchestra, I became jazz-curious. Larry Coryell lit my fire, inconsistently. I discovered Keith Jarrett, so PMG was like a combination of the two. While I was looking for new jazz bands, Pat and Lyle snuck in through the side door of Rock, hand in hand with Joni Mitchell and David Bowie. Those collaborations were played on my favorite rock FM station by day. On Sunday night, there was a jazz show that played them once a night. I was hearing their names more and more, so I started seeking them out. It’s amazing to remember how, for a decade or so, their music was hear all over the place in the USA.

JamesInNC
Feb 11 2020
at 2:38 PM

"Are You Going With Me"...live version...1983...in a record shop...late afternoon...when the sun shines sideways...everything stopped...Simply magnificent.

hman01
Feb 11 2020
at 9:06 AM

Lyle Mays! A huge reason among many for why I started listening to Pat. R.I.P. Lyle.

bhal
Feb 01 2020
at 1:13 AM

I was about 8 when Wes Montgomery passed. My mother had the basement radio on and I kept hearing promos for a memorial retrospective later in the day. This was basically an easy listening am station that played his hits. Dear old mom must have noticed my ears prick up and left the radio on after dinner. Man, I was blown away by his dexterity, tone and feel. Flash forward to the Mid-70’s when my high school daze were in full swing, I got into Django and was drawn into his playing and open to just about anything. Pat Martino caught my attention first, but then I heard about Metheny on local FM AOR rock radio program Midnight Fusion and all that Jazz on Sundays. Bright Size Life hit my ears and had I found my guy. He was young and capable of moving me as the others had and, there was a freshness to his approach. I spent the next 25 years following him thru all the ins and outs, diggin’ each step of the way. However, It had been about 14 yrs between seeing Pat w/Christian McBride, David and Antonio Sanchez on the 20th anniversary tour for Song X ’til I caught up w/Side Eye last March. Once again I was smitten. The old material re-interpreted in the keys and drums trio resonated anew. The joyous noise still moves me.

molesoulsandal
Jan 31 2020
at 10:49 AM

i was thinking yesterday about why i love PM so much, and of course there are many, many reasons (lemmee count da ways), such as the manner in which he and his compatriots have enriched & advanced the musical/artistic landscape here on this planet that we are provided to humanly inhabit . . . . . but i was re-reading an interview that pat did in 2001 w/jazziz magazine in which he was asked how he ’would like to be remembered’ . . . and his answer was: ’it doesn’t matter’ . . . . . . . . . and that may very well be the biggest reason why i love pat metheny.

kejur
Jan 28 2020
at 1:39 PM

At college I met a saxophone major that turned me onto Jazz. He played Michael Brecker’s first album as a leader and I was curious who the guitarist was?...

mugsy
Jan 09 2020
at 2:48 PM

I was in Graduate school in 1980. I became friends with a fellow student and one day he invited me to hang with him at his house. When I walked in, he was playing 80/81 and the rest is history as they say. I was hooked! I immediately went out and bought just about everything I could find by Pat and the PMG. To this day, it would be very unusual that i don’t play at least one of Pat’s CDs every day. I have a good commute to work - so I am always listening to my music. A few years later, I saw the Still Life Talking tour in Berkeley, LA and Sacramento! It was like I was reliving my Dead Head days of following the band from city to city. I did the same thing with The Way Up tour, and many others.

vandelay451
Jan 03 2020
at 1:46 PM

I was at my girlfriend’s birthday party in 1985. The host of the party walked in, told everyone to sit down while she unsheathed an album. She then demanded everyone close their eyes, and take a listen. I obeyed and fell into a trance for the next 9 minutes and 18 seconds. I had never heard anything like it, I was enthralled. When I opened my eyes, everyone had left except me and the person who put the record on. We looked at each other like we had just experienced something life-altering. I married her three years later, and hardly a day goes by that we don’t enjoy Metheny... to this day. Oh.... the song... ARE YOU GOING WITH ME?.

Aristide
Dec 07 2019
at 4:32 PM

I bought his records at a music store and listened to it. My girl friend was into opera and didn’t like it. I told her to leave and stayed with the music. Saved me a lot of trouble.

jeansteinmann
Nov 18 2019
at 5:46 AM

It was the mid to late 70s. I ran a mail order service in the UK for independent record labels and first heard Pat via the Gary Burton Ring record on ECM and the Bley/Pastorius/Metheny/Ditmas record. I can’t remember which came first. Then it was Bright Size Life and like St P below after the Shaw Theatre concert there was no turning back!

ranhiu
Nov 15 2019
at 11:21 PM

I heard New Chautauqua on The Mellow Home K108 in Sacramento when they would play artists like Pat, Jean Luc Ponty, etc. along with Rock and other kinds of music back in the late 70’s. There was another station in Sacramento called KSFM Earth Radio FM 102 that I heard Jaco and immediately bought the White Album. I was impressed (and still am) with Pat’s ability to play in different styles and genres. I think that’s why I’ve been such a huge fan since that time and when I got a job working at Tower as a jazz buyer in the mid 80’s had the pleasure to sell Pat’s music and meet the group a few times was a great highlight in my life!

St P
Nov 15 2019
at 3:08 AM

At uni in fall 76, got friendly with some other jazz fans. One had Bright Size Life, bought it because of Jaco but thrilled to the guitar tyro. Then in March 77 saw the original PMG at Shaw Theatre London. They were their own roadies. They opened with Phase Dance and then San Lorenzo. A whole world of possibilities opened up for me and many others that night.

facing west
Nov 14 2019
at 4:04 PM

I heard an hour-long ECM promo piece that included a range of great stuff and some conversation with Pat. I think it was hearing New Chatauqua the really blew me away, but the whole thing was an electrifying experience. You could really tell that Pat was not only an incredible talent, but that he had deep insights into music and even life in general. A moment I’ll never forget.

Stybba
Oct 02 2019
at 6:41 AM

The year was 1979 and I was a senior in high school. New Chautauqua had just come out and it was being played on the radio. I immediately fell in love with tunes I heard so I went out and purchased the album. Unfortunately for me I didn’t actually go to a Metheny concert until the Imaginary Day tour. Long ago an acquaintance of mine told me that Pat Metheny sucked live so that is why I hadn’t seen any of his shows until Imaginary Day. I regret listening to this advice to this day. It seems I missed a lot of good shows.shows.

broph
Sep 14 2019
at 9:36 AM

Back in the early eighties I took up learning guitar as a teenager. I told my teacher at one of the local music stores that I wanted to learn Van Halen and other rock bands songs. He said sure, and showed me a few things. The next week before the lesson was over gave me a cassette with music on it. On the case it was labeled with songs from Al DiMeola, Allman Brothers, Mahavishnu Orchestra, The Dregs, Michael Hedges, Pat Metheny and a few others. In my world up until then I thought VH was everything, but with that one cassette it opened me up to so many different styles of music and musicians that shaped what I have been listening to current day.

webtrotter1958
Sep 09 2019
at 8:53 PM

Year of 1980, Buenos Aires, downsouth in Argentina. I buyed a issue of DownBeat magazine, that regularly was imported. Pat was in the cover. I liked the guitar (his 175), the kind of rocker image, and then I get "American Garage" , a brazilian edition (?). That was the departure of a travel since then to right now. I`ll go with two of my children to a show scheduled March 13th. Just buyed the tickets in advance.

tomm
Sep 07 2019
at 3:06 PM

My brother is 10 years younger than me. He got interested in guitar from watching one of my best friends in high school play guitar while I sang. My brother turned into a pretty good guitar player and he and I both got interested in jazz while in college. He heard PMG and recommended it highly to me. (Since I don’t play an instrument - yet anyway! That bass is still on its rack in my home office! - and just sing, I got him started on Michael Franks in return). "First Circle" was my first exposure and still my favorite PMG song. My brother and I still go to every show Pat does in the Dallas/Fort Worth area together and we’ve both seen him in other cities when the other wasn’t around. Still our favorite musician!

frinyc
Sep 06 2019
at 12:28 PM

In 1977, I was at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There was a guy on my dorm floor who played the PMG album for me; I got hooked on Phase Dance and San Lorenzo. Then there was the Santa Barbara Joni Mitchell concert that blew me away. That guy in Madison has no idea what a gift he gave me!! Sure wish I knew who he was.. Dude...thanks man.

john
Jul 15 2019
at 4:46 PM

A jazz festival west of London in the summer of 1978. The Pat Metheny Quartet were the last but one act on the Saturday evening. Ornette headlined the following day. First thing I’d ever heard from Pat were the opening chords of Phase Dance. It was like being hit by lightning (metaphorical of course).

HAMBONE
Jul 09 2019
at 11:01 PM

I live in SE Pa and Philly had some great FM radio stations and Deejays in the 60s and 70s. I remember hearing Pat’s BSL album on a progressive rock/jazz program called Crosscurrents on WMMR. After that I heard San Lorenzo and Phase Dance on the same station and bought both albums. That’s all it took. I was at the first show PMG played in Philly in 78 when Pat asked Jaco’s father to stand up and be recognized before they played the song they named after his son. What a great era that was for jazz and progressive music! There will probably never be another like it again.

bxl12378
Jul 04 2019
at 8:56 AM

Switching channels on the TV back in ’84 (think it was still a black and white tv-set) I came across this concert they were showing of a band I did not know. It was love at first sight. I ran to get my old audio-cassetterecorder and was able to record some 30’ of the gig (Jazz à Juan-les-Pïns). Listened to it a million times and still got it. In the mean time I must have about every record Pat ever played on. First time I heard him play live AYGWM, the song of my life, I cried. That tune has been with me all over the world ever since. So many memories...Be well.

MarcNebo
Jul 03 2019
at 1:18 PM

I was so long ago I can’t remember how I got turned on to Pat. May have been an article or review in Downbeat. First live show was maybe 1977 or 1978 at Amazingrace in Evanston IL. It was a small coffehouse that booked everything from Jazz, Rock, Folk, Blues and more. When I went backstage at a Pat Metheny Unity Group show in Chicago in 2014(?) Pat raved about the venue and said he never saw anything like that again.

seadog
Jul 02 2019
at 8:39 AM

naut, saw your other post. Hahaha, gotta love senior moments buddy! Yup, it was Francis Field House and was over two days. The Rockport show was one of about a dozen or so acoustic shows he did at the end of the Side Eye Tour. All in small little out of the way places throughout New England. I don’t think any of them held over 300. The Rockport hall is just a magnificent little jewel box of a theater with world class acoustics. He said it was the first time he had ever done a solo acoustic tour of any type. He always wanted to try it and said Leo Kottke was his inspiration, ever since they used to play with him back in the day. Said he always wanted to see what it was like to just sit and tune his guitar while talking, playing and telling stories to the audience. After more than 40 years it was a dream come true concert...pure joy!

Oystein
Jul 02 2019
at 4:49 AM

Browsing through the news section in my local record store back in -78, I stumbeled over this cool, white album cover with no picture, only names of people that I`ve never heard of. After hearing the first seven seconds of the first track, I was hooked and has been so ever since.

Chris Digger
Jul 01 2019
at 7:59 AM

In the 90s my brother lend me a Cassette tape of the Travels-Live Album. What i heard was astonishing: beautiful melodies, harmonies, Uptempo tunes and wonderful ballads. This was the Soundtrack of my life then and i was hooked by tunes like Farmer´s trust, The Fields-The Sky, San Lorenzo, Straight on Red... And that was topped later on by the release of Secret Story what made me a fan since then.

naut
Jun 28 2019
at 6:55 PM

seadog, I was at that show in ’76 at Wash U too. Seems that it was in a field house or gymnasium, though I’m not sure which. Someone else at the Garage was at that show as well, and we chatted a little bit about it years ago. Don’t recall his handle. I didn’t know Pat was doing solo shows like at Rockport. I kind of thought he was primarily doing Side Eye trio shows. Must’ve been sublime. Glad you caught the show.

seadog
Jun 28 2019
at 9:31 AM

Multiple coincidental paths let me to what is now pretty much an obsession. First, growing up in Boston the buzz about Pat was pretty well established around town in the mid-seventies. While attending Washington Univ in St Louis in Oct of 76 I first saw Pat with the Gary Burton Quartet during the ECM Festival of Music concert along with Eberhard Weber, Jack DeJohnette, John Abercrombie, Ralph Towner and more. A life changing concert for sure. While a student in Europe, a bunch of us were reading the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. There is a chapter in it about the creation of the Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York and its philosophy. A year later when New Chautauqua was released, after reading a review of it and a curiosity about the title, I just had to immediately go out and buy it. Now over 40 years later, too many live shows to count and over 800 PM tracks in my itunes account, I still find his music as fresh and blissfully enjoyable as that first time in 76. In fact last month, his concert in Rockport MA, I can only describe as an early summer night’s dream come true. Just Pat, a guitar and a stool before 300 stunned fans. The most intimate, emotional Pat concert I’ve ever seen and a top 5 for sure. Pat that just sat on a stool, told stories, talked to the audience and tuned his guitar while revisiting all his solo acoustic material from New Chautauqua, One Quiet Night, What’s It All About, Missouri Skies and more. When he came out for an encore and laid down the first notes of the Beatles And I Love Her there was an audible sigh from the audience… gorgeous! It took days to get the smile off this old man’s face.

Dortboy
Jun 27 2019
at 4:18 PM

It actually began somewhere around 1980, when a local news program used the opening of "(Cross The) Heartland" as its intro music, and I was drawn to it but unable to find out what it was. A few years later I had a friend who belonged to one of those record-and-tape clubs that sent him a "selection of the month," which he decided he didn’t like and gave it to me. This was "Travels" on cassette, which I loved, and I bought "Rejoicing" and "First Circle" when they came out, soon acquiring all the ones that had come before (when I heard "American Garage" the first time and recognized the opening notes I cheered :D). I’ve bought ’em all within a week of their release date ever since. Dortgirl and I have tix for a Side Eye show later this year - this will make my twenty-sixth PM concert since ’89 - excited to hear the new trio but a little sad that my tradition of going to the record store for The New Pat Record seems to be a thing of the past. Cheers from Porkopolis y’all...

franksexton
Jun 26 2019
at 2:03 PM

he’s a ecm artist works and works 2 - found used at a local record shop

harn
Jun 24 2019
at 3:38 PM

I saw Pat on a BBC television program in the UK called “The Old Grey Whistle Test” around late ‘84/early ‘85 and I was intrigued, having also seen his name in various guitar magazines. I was attending a gig (can’t quite remember what but definitely a rock gig) at the Manchester Apollo and noticed an advert for PMG tickets. There were some really cheap seats right at the back, so my friend and I decided to take a gamble and buy a pair. The concert was on May 4th 1985 on the First Circle tour and it was life changing, I was absolutely mesmerised from the moment they walked on through the audience to the last notes of the encore. I’d never experienced anything quite like it. I collected all the records and waited patiently for their return to the UK which happened two years later on the Still Life Talking tour at Hammersmith Odeon. The difference that time was that I knew all the music and again it was a deeply moving experience.

foxesfred
Jun 22 2019
at 11:43 AM

It was 1978/9. I tired of rock and wanted to return to improvisation type music. The Jam Bands were no longer doing it for me. Came across Wichita Falls in Tower Records (Tempe, AZ).Did some research and next thing I know wore that LP out. The band came to town and I was sold forever!

naut
Jun 22 2019
at 9:51 AM

I walked into a record store in New Orleans in 1978 and said, "Whatcha got that’s good in new jazz?" He handed me the vinyl white album and the rest, as they say, is herstory. Simple as that. And I’ve been a fiend for Pat ever since.

tiny_tim
Jun 22 2019
at 9:31 AM

I played B-flat trumpet (highly loved Maynard Ferguson, Bill Chase, Doc Severinsen, Don Ellis, Chicago Transit Authority) and my best friends were in band growing up grade school through Uni days. One particular fellow band friend was a Flute, Piano, Tenor Sax, and Synth player who had his finger on the pulse of records and artists, and was very much a highly gifted musician. Barry was very much into music and still is. How he knew about things music back in the pre-internet days still has me baffled. I used to go over to his place and we’d listen to albums in his room which was filled with all sorts of instruments including a patch-cord Moog synthesizer. One of the offerings he had was Lyle Mays’ 1975 recording with the One O’Clock Lab Band at North Texas State...Lyle wrote many of the tunes on that Grammy winning album. So one day I rock up to Barry’s place in 1977 and he said have a listen to this. As soon as the stylus hit those vinyl grooves my life took a turn and I have been a follower of Pat Metheny. It was that first track...Phase Dance.....the rest as they say is history. It’s been a most wonderful journey.

Gyuri
Jun 21 2019
at 4:03 AM

It was in fall, 1984. The first track I was exposed to was AYGWM - it was like a lighting bolt. I was at a college camp and they played PM as wake-up music every morning. What a pleasant lighting bolt to wake you up. I became addicted immediately. And then I first saw him in concert in Budapest in 1989 on the Letter From Home tour.

patsfan
Jun 21 2019
at 1:48 AM

Great question. Back in the 70’s I listened to anything I liked, mostly jazz oriented.. By the early 80s, American Garage, As Witchita Falls, Offramp, Beyond the Missouri Sky,, etc hooked me and from then on I was addicted . Only a few people I have ever met shared my jazz focus. .... that always puzzled me. I don’t understand people’s music tastes or lack thereof. How could you NOT like Pat’s music .... if not other jazz musicians ???

Raskolnikov
Jun 20 2019
at 3:42 PM

in 2002 I get married. My wife Raffaella and I traveled on our honeymoon, "Speaking of Now" with us ... another chapter and the album whose title was so close to the changing of my life at that time. Like a sort of parallel evolution... sorry for that. Now I’m back to silence. A big hug men

Raskolnikov
Jun 20 2019
at 3:20 PM

I forgot to tell that now I’m still playing in different musical situation (from Symphonic or Opera orchestra to Jazz, Rock or so on.. and... I’m becoming an apostle, I’ve got my "Metheny Project" trio. We play all "Bright size life" album and many other tunes from Pat music, in some case rearranged for trio.. like "Au Lait", "Phase Dance", "Sometimes I See", "So may it secretly begin", or other tunes like "Timeline" or "The Red Ones"... That’s GREAT TIME for us.

Raskolnikov
Jun 20 2019
at 3:09 PM

It was during 1978... I was a young musician (percussion) always in search of beauty and something that could thrill my soul. One day a friend of mine came to my home with four LP of mr. Metheny He probably remember a particular day in Italy; In Carrara at Parco la Padula (it was in the nineties). I remember that there was a problem related to the fact that their trucks will not be able to get on the road to reach the place of the concert and that was how they were sent directly to Rome for the concert the next day. They found the location beautiful and the people that was there for them so they decided to play the same in some way. Together with us (an unforgettable day) these wonderful people went out of their way to remedy the musical instruments necessary for a standard-style evening ... this was the indelible signature of the greatness of their soul. My life then was a succession of music played, listened to always with me everywhere. Hello from Luca

molesoulsandal
Jun 20 2019
at 1:03 PM

being from missouri i had a musician friend from up around lee’s summit who alerted me about pat, back when the world was young, not to mention a whole lot friendlier . . . .

carlosrubio.79
Jun 20 2019
at 12:22 PM

My dad always played on car trips, The road to you cassette. Those were the first time I heard Pat.

hman01
Jun 20 2019
at 10:25 AM

It was in 1980, a friend of mine had a copy of The White Album. It was of course on vinyl as CDs were not in public circulation yet. He put it on the turntable and the first thing I heard was San Lorenzo. I was hooked and remain so to this day!

BobSmith1
Jun 19 2019
at 11:54 PM

Back in the fall of 1978 I used to stay up into the wee hours listening to various FM stations and there was one, a "quiet storm" type, that used to play (unbeknownst to me at the time) San Lorenzo as the end-of-show tune. I actually would stay up late (the sign off was around 4am) just to hear this tune that at the time was the most amazing thing I had ever heard. It was like a distillation of everything I’d been listening to up to that point in time, from The Beatles to southern rock to Di Meola, RTF, Boston, Fleetwood Mac and everything you can think of that a 20 year old wannabe guitarist might have been into. But of course totally unique and soulful and graceful like nothing I’d ever heard! I’d known of Pat, sort of in passing, at this point, and had a suspicion that this was one of his songs. One late afternoon I called the station and asked the on-air guy if he knew who that was at the end of that late show and he said Pat Metheny. A few months later I got the White Album but it wasn’t until 1982 that I got to finally see them live.

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