Pat Metheny: What’s It All About

Videos by American Songwriter

Pat Metheny
What’s It All About
(Nonesuch)
[Rating: 3.5 stars]

The injustices of art are as old as time. The fact the Pat Metheny, one of the great innovators of the guitar and of jazz itself, has only had a handful of gold records out of more than 100 he has recorded is a travesty. One guesses Metheny has never minded, though, or he could easily have done something about it. Apparently it’s been more satisfying to make records with the likes of Jaco Pastorius and Ornette Coleman to have an eight-figure bank account and public adoration.

Interestingly, though, Metheny came out of the same pop radio background of the ‘60s and early ‘70s that so many people who are approaching Social Security age did. On his new CD, What’s It All About, Metheny goes back to pay homage to some of the melodies that influenced him as a kid, melodies that have stuck with him into middle age. Unaccompanied and playing mostly baritone guitar, Metheny turns in his versions here of such classics as Paul Simon’s “The Sound of Silence,” Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “Alfie,” and Carly Simon and Jacob Brackman’s “That’s the Way I’ve Always Heard It Should Be.”  The difference here – besides the fact that there are no vocals – is that these songs don’t have to fit into the three-and-a-half minute mold that they did when they were originally produced (a couple tracks here are over seven minutes), giving Metheny lots of room to experiment with alternate chords and melodic excursions. And, of course, being a jazz player, he does just that, sometimes making the listener forget what song they were even listening to until he comes back to the melody to close out the song.

Brian Carman and Bob Spickard’s (the Chantays) 1962 surf-rock guitar classic “Pipeline” is perhaps an odd choice for an acoustic version, but Metheny makes it into something else while still managing to pay tribute to its lasting influence on guitar players. The old Stylistics hit “Betcha By Golly Wow” by Philly hitmakers Linda Creed and Thom Bell is a great and surprising inclusion. And while he takes liberties with pretty much every melody on this record, Metheny closes the album with a pretty straight and unaffected version of Lennon and McCartney’s “And I Love Her.” A wise move on his part, being smart enough to not mess with a Beatles tune.

This record is much in the same vein as Metheny’s masterful 2003 album One Quiet Night, which also featured baritone guitar treatments of nearly all original tunes, with the exceptions of the Gerry Marsden (Gerry and the Pacemakers) hit “Ferry Cross the Mersey” and a version of Norah Jones’ “Don’t Know Why”(written by Jesse Harris). Those who liked One Quiet Night, especially those familiar with the pop material Metheny is recalling, should enjoy this record. But many non-jazz listeners will find this CD dreary and sleepy, and jazz purists probably won’t like it a lot either. It’s not exciting or uptempo, and Metheny’s chord changes throughout are often not strictly the original ones and definitely aren’t stock jazz substitutions. It’s just great to hear someone who plays music strictly for its own sake dip into the well of what helped make him the legend he is today. And it’s another great Pat Metheny record that probably won’t sell a lot.

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