artist info

Metheny says “A few years back, I did a short run of concerts that were not exclusively me and a single guitar, but pretty close. I loved it. Of course, I always have to take it somewhere else too, which by the end of those performances, I did manage to do (no spoilers here!), but what I have planned for the tour following the release of my new recording Dream Box, is something different for me, focused on the various ways of playing solo I have explored across all these decades in an evening that I think will be very special".

Think about these recordings; New Chautauqua - a 1979 recording that almost single-handedly defined an era of instrumental steel-stringed. Americana; Zero Tolerance For Silence - a shot across the bow of modern music making, the companion piece to parallel the Grammy-winning disc Secret Story; The Orchestrion Project, a project so outrageous in conception and execution that even a decade-plus later, it stands apart from any previous ideas of what a solo performer might achieve alone onstage.

And then consider and contrast those projects to the two back-to-back Grammy-winning solo Baritone guitar recordings, One Quiet Night and What's It All About. Those recordings are not only among the most gorgeous pure solo guitar recordings, but they also introduced an entirely new tuning system that allowed Metheny to create an almost orchestral range from bass to soprano within the realm of a simple steel 6-string guitar.

Despite a catalog of 50 recordings that have won 20 Grammys in twelve different categories, Metheny’s “complex and restlessly curious musical sensibility” (The Guardian) continues to lead him in new directions.

As well as being an accomplished musician, Metheny has also participated in the academic arena as a music educator. At 18, he was the youngest teacher ever at the University of Miami. At 19, he became the youngest teacher ever at the Berklee College of Music, where he also received an honorary doctorate more than twenty years later (1996). He has also taught music workshops all over the world, from the Dutch Royal Conservatory to the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz to clinics in Asia and South America. He’s been a true musical pioneer in the realm of electronic music, and was one of the very first jazz musicians to treat the synthesizer as a serious musical instrument. Years before the invention of MIDI technology, Metheny was using the Synclavier as a composing tool. He also has been instrumental in the development of several new kinds of guitars such as the soprano acoustic guitar, the 42-string Pikasso guitar, Ibanez’s PM series jazz guitars, and a variety of other custom instruments.

Pat Metheny continues to be one of the brightest stars of the jazz community, dedicating time to both his own projects and those of emerging artists and established veterans alike, helping them to reach their audience as well as realizing their own artistic visions.