Trio-Live: Live Jazz Never Sounded Like This Before!

Be Like Pat?
How can a musician continually be prolific without boring?
How can a musician be busy, busy, busy with group and solo projects and not leave some sort of train-wreck album on the side of the road?

More importantly, How can a musician be like Pat Metheny?

I have noted in another Epinion review of this guitar god that Pat Metheny [1954-] is a revered guitar player, possibly the premier guitar player in jazz today. He’s also a prolific composer, at times approaching the genius level in many listeners’ ears. He’s that good.

It’s the Music, Not the Masses That Matters to Metheny
Metheny takes some of his most interesting left turns whenever his Pat Metheny Group is on hiatus. Above all, he just loves to play music. Consequently, and happily so, his output/work is all over the musical map. Pat Metheny is unafraid of commercial risk and willingly challenges his audience (Song X, Zero Tolerance for Silence, Sign of Four) so consequently his fans are kept on their toes and ears.

In the past few years he has fed the jazz fan’s appetite a number of varied diets—the soundtrack to Map of the World, and the classic duets of Across the Missouri Sky with Charlie Haden, among others. He also, happily so, returned to the trio format with 2000’s Trio- 99/00, featuring Larry Grenadier on bass and Bill Stewart on drums.

Trio-99/00, led into a long year+ tour with Grenadier/Stewart and some special quests along the way. The Trio did a multi-show stand at the Knitting Factory in NYC earlier this year that was widely praised (I was fortunate to attend one show).

The tour was documented for Trio-Live, released on Warner Brothers Records, a 13-track documentation of the Trio’s power spread across three continents.

Disc One:
Bright Size Life/Question and Answer/Giant Steps (John Coltrane)/Into the Dream/So It May Secretly Begin/The Bat/ All the Things You Are (Jerome Kern)

Disc Two:
James/Unity Village/Soul Cowboy/Night Turns Into Day/Faith Healer/Counting Texas

Trio-Live is one of the finer live jazz albums you can expect to hear in this day and age. Sonically, it’s recorded honestly with the crowd noise and a suspected dish/glass break intact. And it just sounds great LOUD.

This is a muscular and rhythmic performance delivered by Pat and his cohorts. It is also a performance full of nuance and some moments of sheer beauty. Pat-Heads will love Trio-Live though they will invariably quibble about what was left off. There are a number of genres explored here and there are many highlights to be found among them.

Moments of Straight-Ahead Jazz Power
Standout cuts here are the opening number Bright Size Life, the title track from Pat’s first trio-format record with Bob Moses and Jaco Pastorious. It was also his first album back in 1976. It is a recognizable and stirring start to the album and features some good interplay with Grenadier/Stewart. It’s one of pat’s most recognizable guitar tracks.

Question and Answer, the title track from a trio-format album Pat made with Dave Holland and Roy Haynes is featured next, a 19 minute muscular exercise into the jazz bebop tradition with much to warrant a bravo. It’s an chance for this trio to make it their own song and they come close to meeting that goal. It’s quite an achievement to capture this tune’s layers in a live recording.

John Coltrane’s Giant Steps has been tackled by many other artists and is included on the Trio-99/00 album too. At just under 10 minutes, it takes awhile to open up and starts as a ballad piece for Pat with a beautifully lyrical solo. Another rewarding song selection for the Trio.

Ballads and Other Classics
Into the Dream from 1997’s Imaginary Day has much to enrapture the listener with as it involves Pat’s playing of the 42-string guitar. It’s a ballad with an Asian feel to it, and I’ve sometimes heard it described diffidently as a the spaghetti western track. It’s not to everyone’s taste but it’s an amazing display of Pat’s abilities to make this work. He’s the only guitarist I know of that plays this instrument.

So It May Secretly Begin is taken off the Still Life (Talking) record of 1987, and the Trio format allows this song to breathe a bit in an altered arrangement. More great solos by Pat but Grenadier and Stewart do much to balance out the song with textured playing in the background of the guitar. Stewart especially plays well behind the solo with some nice drum interplay. This is a surprising song selection but works beautifully in this textured arrangement.

1980’s 80/81 was another earlier foray of Pat’s into the straight-ahead jazz world with some high profile participants (Charlie Haden/Jack DeJohnette/Dewey Redman/Mike Brecker) and featured a tune called The Bat one of Pat’s more rewarding ballads and little known outside that album. It’s a superbly arranged piece here with Pat’s guitar front and center.

Tackling jazz standard’s like Jerome Kern’s All the Things You Are is not for the faint of heart. It must be done well and made different without detracting from the quiet beauty of the original. The Trio succeeds here and is able to give it some new shadings with fine work by the Trio to keep it traditional and still engage the modern ear with the interplay between the guitar/bass/drum triangle.

James from 1982’s Offramp is one of the most revered tunes in PMG’s arsenal of fan favorites. This Metheny/Mays homage to James Taylor is surprisingly effective in the Trio format. I loved this track with its recognizable and clear guitar opening and the nuances brought out by the bass/drum balance that Grenadier and Stewart clearly relish. An true album highlight for many.

The Bright Size Life album also included Unity Village, which was a quieter piece with a graceful power behind Pat’s guitar. Grenadier/Stewart hold steady here and give a quieter support to Pat’s melancholy guitar notes. A good late night tune.

The New Stuff: Not for Fans of Kenny G!
Soul Cowboy was on the Trio-99/00 and loses nothing being introduced here for the first time to many in the audience.

Three brand new Metheny songs are also included on Trio-Live:
1. the gorgeous guitar balladry of Night Turns Into Day
2. the disquieting pull and rush (I found shades of Fripp/Hackett here) and the sheer sonic dissonant explorations of Faith Healer and
3. the strangely skewed country rambling of Counting Texas

The last two tracks are sure to give listeners a what the? response, but taken as they are, they are admirable explorations into the inner workings of Metheny’s more wigged out synapses. Avant-garde? Yes. Improvisational? Yes. Rewarding? That’s up to you the listener. Another challenge from Mr. Metheny. These last two are clearly discussion pieces.

Five stars may seem extreme to some since Trio-Live is an album with some risk taking moments that challenge the listener. This is a live record that demands some attention. At its best, it is a rewarding journey with one of Jazz’s most intriguing players. At its lowest moments, it will strike some as a look at Metheny’s indulgent side.

You be the judge. Pat’s waiting.

This album was rumored to be planned with a third disc of downloadable tunes, but that effort was seemingly abandoned. Check out the group’s web site at www.patmethenygroup.com.

The Cat Scale
Both Freddie and Chester seemingly enjoyed this record up until the last three tunes. Faith Healer had them running from the room. On balance, this CD gets two paws up from the furry side of the room.