guitarplayer.com MARCH 2001 GUITAR PLAYER 105104 GUITAR PLAYER MARCH 2001 guitarplayer.com

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P H O T O G R A P H B Y D E N N I S K L E I M A N

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➤The trio is one of the most exciting formats for jazz guitarists.

Working with just bass-and-drums backing, players have maximum

rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic elbow room. No pesky piano voic-

ings to dodge, no second guitarist hogging your bandwidth—just

the steady, driving pulse of the rhythm section and plenty of wide-

open road to take improvisational excursions. ■ There’s a flip side,

however. All that freedom can be daunting. Without a harmonic

B Y A D A M L E V Y

PAT METHENY

TALKSTRIOS,

TONES & TECHNIQUE�� �

�

“As I was learning

I never thought about

the instrument—

I thought about the

music.” —PAT METHENY

Originally printed in March 2001 issue of Guitar Player.Reprinted with the permission of the Publishers of Guitar Play-er. Copyright [year of original publication] United Entertain-ment Media, Inc., a CMP Information company. All rights re-

served. Guitar Player is a Music Player Network publication, 2800 Campus Dr., San Mateo, CA94403 (650) 513-4300. Subscribe at www.musicplayer.com.

Metheny. Though he’s best known for his workwith the Pat Metheny Group—which hasranged in size from four to seven memberssince the Group’s inception in 1977—some ofMetheny’s most personal and influential discshave been his trio outings. He has released fivesuch records over the course of his career, be-ginning in 1975 with Bright Size Life. Rejoicingfollowed in ’83, then Question and Answer in’89, and, last year, Metheny released two trioalbums—Trio 99 —> 00 and the two-CDTrio —>Live [both on Warner Bros.]. Though he’snow leaving the trio format behind to launcha new Pat Metheny Group project, the guitaristremains excited about the three-man ensemblehe spent the past year-and-a-half touring andrecording with.

• • • • •

What is it about playing in a trio that appealsto you?

One thing that’s cool about a guitar trio isit’s a blank slate. There aren’t a lot of archetypesto say, “Okay, this is how you do it.” That wasparticularly true when I started playing in thelate ’60s. You could almost count the trio recordsthat existed then—Kenny Burrell’s Man at Work,one Grant Green record, and a couple of Jim Hallrecords. It was open territory.

How is this trio different from other triosyou’ve had?

On the Rejoicing album, I played with[bassist] Charlie Haden and [drummer] Billy Hig-gins, who were the rhythm section from [sax-ophonist] Ornette Coleman’s band. We shapedthe music around that connection, and weplayed a lot of Ornette’s tunes. It was similar with[drummer] Roy Haynes and [bassist] Dave Hol-land, with whom I recorded Question and An-swer. Roy was one of the pivotal figures in thedevelopment of modern jazz music, so I wantedto build our music around that.

But in my new trio with [bassist] LarryGrenadier and [drummer] Bill Stewart, I’m build-ing the music around what my thing is. I assumeabsolute command of the troops, in terms of set-ting the direction and tone of the music throughthe compositions, the instrumentation, and thevolume we play at.

Had the new group played together much be-fore you recorded Trio 99 —>00?

We did four or five weeks of gigs in Europe.Those were just for fun—something differentafter a two-year stretch of gigs I had done withmy regular group.

Why did you decide to record this group?Day by day, the playing kept getting better

and better, and the band started morphing intothis very special thing. It developed an identitythat was quite different from my other trios, soit would have been insane not to document it.Four or five days before the end of the tour, Isaid, “When we get back to New York, let’s go

guitarplayer.com MARCH 2001 GUITAR PLAYER 107

instrument to provide chordal signposts, it’s easyto get lost in the labyrinthine progression of ajazz tune. And you get little or no chance to rest.You’re in charge of playing the lion’s share ofmelodies and solos, plus all the comping duringbass or drum solos. You’re also more responsiblefor the music’s overall texture than you are ina larger group—when you play sparsely, theband sounds sparse, and when you play clusterychords or concentrated solo flurries, the bandsounds dense.

One guitarist who’s very familiar with thechallenges and rewards of trio playing is Pat

106 GUITAR PLAYER MARCH 2001 guitarplayer.com PHOTO: EBET ROBERTS PHOTO: DENNIS KLEIMAN

or the past few years, Metheny has done most his electric work on an Ibanez Pat

Metheny Signature Model PM120—a thinline, double-cutaway archtop. It’s strung

with a D’Addario XL115W set (.011P, .014P, .018W, .028W, .038W, .049W).

Metheny uses a complex rig to amplify his Ibanez. First, the guitar signal goes to a di-

rect box, which splits the signal and sends one line to the house P.A. (or recording console)

and the other line to a DigiTech GSP 2101 preamp. The right channel output of the 2101 is

split via a direct box, with one of the signals routed to a Crest power amp and an old

Acoustic 134 4x10 combo loaded with JBLs—the amp electronics aren’t engaged, as the

combo is used solely as a speaker cabinet—and the other signal going to an old Lexicon

Prime Time II delay (set to a 13-millisecond delay with sine-wave modulation). This signal

terminates at a Crest power amp feeding a 15" JBL speaker in a Theil cabinet that sits on

one side of the stage. The 2101’s left side is sent to a Prime Time II (set to a 26-millisecond

delay with sine-wave modulation), as well, and then to another Crest power amp feeding a

15" JBL in a Theil cab placed on the opposite side of the stage.

“This setup fills out the sound so my guitar doesn’t appear as if it’s coming from a little

box,” says Metheny. “People often confuse my processed tone with ‘chorusing’—an effect

I’ve always hated because it mixes two different pitches in one speaker. I like it when two

sound sources are discreet and things just mix together in the air.” —AL

M E T H E N Y ’ S T O N E T O O L S

F

hen you hear Pat Metheny’s fluid improvised lines—often zooming by at a

swift clip—it’s hard to imagine he believes his picking technique leaves much

to be desired. —AL

“When I watch Pat Martino play, his picking technique is the most efficient thing I’ve

ever seen,” says Metheny. “There’s very little movement, and it’s very practical. My tech-

nique is absolutely illogical.

“People often ask me why I hold the pick backwards. The reason is I could only get

Fender Thin picks in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, where I grew up. I couldn’t stand the way those

picks sounded, so I learned to hold them backwards—with the round edge towards the

strings—and to bend the edge a little between my thumb and two fingers. That made the

thin pick sound more like a medium.

“I didn’t see any really good guitar players when I was starting out, because there

weren’t many around my town. When I finally did see guys who could really play, I

thought, ‘Wow, I’m picking all wrong!’ But by then it was too late, because I was already

making records. I do think about taking a month off and studying with someone like

Frank Gambale, because there are things I can’t quite do, which I could do if I had a

more efficient picking technique.”

METHENY ON HIS ILLOGICAL PICKING

W

“If you present music in such a

way that the audience can find their

own door into it, you can challenge

them musically,” says Metheny

(with Ibanez PM120 prototype).

A ss rewn��Paty

Originally printed in [month] [year] issue of Guitar Player.Reprinted with the permission of the Publishers of Guitar Play-er. Copyright [year of original publication] United Entertain-ment Media, Inc., a CMP Information company. All rights re-

served. Guitar Player is a Music Player Network publication, 2800 Campus Dr., San Mateo, CA94403 (650) 513-4300. Subscribe at www.musicplayer.com.

into the studio for a day or two and see whathappens.”

Did you record the repertoire you had beenplaying on the road?

I didn’t want to play the music that we hadbeen playing live. I wanted to play all differentstuff.

Why?I wanted to combine the freshness that hap-

pens when you get people together playing mu-sic for the first time—which is often magical—with that sort of collective breathing that wehad developed through playing together everynight. I felt we could mix those two elementsby avoiding the music we’d already played. Thelast date of our tour was on a Sunday, we flewhome on Monday, had Tuesday off to do ourlaundry, and went into the studio Wednesdayand Thursday. That gave me just two days tocome up with a batch of new music. I wrote sixnew pieces.

You also recorded new versions of some ofyour older tunes.

One interesting coincidence about theemergence of this trio is that it coincided withthe finishing stages of the Pat Metheny Song-book [Hal Leonard], which I had been workingon for 13 years. It has almost all the music I’veever recorded—close to 200 songs. That was be-ing finished when the trio first started, so I hap-pened to have all these lead sheets for oldertunes I had literally forgotten—like “Lone Jack.”I listened to that song again when I was going

through the final correction stages of the book,and I realized it could work as a trio tune.

How did the Trio —>Live record come about?I hadn’t even intended to release the studio

record, but it ended up that our two days in thestudio produced enough good material to re-lease an album, which, in turn, gave us an excuseto do more gigs. I recorded a number of those,and put together Trio —>Live from where we hadgone past the point we did in the studio.

How so?On the studio record, I intentionally wanted

to stay with 6-string guitar and play conventionalsong forms—in the tradition of what I had doneon Bright Size Life. When we played live, we hadall that, but we could also go into other stylistic

zones. Some nights we’d play a lot of ballads, oth-ers we’d focus mostly on standards, and therewere some nights where we’d get into the kindof wide-open space you hear on “Question andAnswer.” The instrumentation is also more var-ied on the live album—I used several differentguitars, which changed the texture of the music.

What’s your primary guitar on Trio —>Live?The prototype of my Ibanez Pat Metheny Sig-

nature model PM120. The one I used has onlyone pickup. The production model has two.

You’re not playing your trusty old GibsonES-175 anymore?

I retired the ES-175 in 1995. It was really get-ting rickety, and I realized it’s the only materialthing on Earth that, if something happened to

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If you want to learn even more

about Pat Metheny’s hardware,

history, or musical philosophy, drop

by the “Question & Answer” page at

patmethenygroup.com.

WEB RIFF

PHOTO: EBET ROBERTS

“When a band plays together

every night, they start to

breathe together, think

together, and phrase togeth-

er.” —Metheny onstage

in ’82 with Roland GR-303.

A ss rewn��Paty

Originally printed in [month] [year] issue ofGuitar Player. Reprinted with the permissionof the Publishers of Guitar Player. Copyright[year of original publication] United Enter-

tainment Media, Inc., a CMP Information company. All rights reserved. Gui-tar Player is a Music Player Network publication, 2800 Campus Dr., San Ma-teo, CA 94403 (650) 513-4300. Subscribe at www.musicplayer.com.

it, I’d be really upset. That guitar has been partof my life since I was 13 years old. I love it—it’sso soulful. I’ve never had any work done on it.I’d still be playing it if it wasn’t falling apart sobadly, but I really don’t want to fix it.

How did your signature model develop?Starting in 1981, Ibanez became determined

to make an instrument that I would play. They’dcome to my gigs with prototypes, and I’d say,“Thanks, but I’m not interested.” And they’d tryagain. They kept making these different proto-types, and it didn’t seem to deter them that I keptturning them down. After a while, I realized theywere serious, so I cooperated with them.

They made something I really liked in the

mid ’80s. I said, “I like this guitar, and I’ll playit sometimes, but I’m not ready to give up my175.” They understood, and continued to makemore prototypes until, in the mid ’90s, they finallycame up with something I had to admit was bet-ter than the ES-175, in terms of access to the up-per part of the instrument and its consistent feeland tone across the board. At that point, I knewthat unless I retired the 175, it would always bean issue for me—I’d always want to play it. SoI made the decision to play the Ibanez.

Your tone is pretty dark. Do you use flat-wound strings?

I did play flatwounds for many years. I want-ed something with the quick decay that gutstrings have on acoustic bass—that was the goal.But as of two or three years ago, I switched toroundwounds.

Why?Partly because I want to hear the guitar ring

more, and the roundwounds do that. But also,I was missing the bandwidth that I got when Iplay acoustic guitar. With acoustic, there’s somuch more frequency information, and round-wounds have helped me get more of that soundon electric.

What other instruments did you play onTrio —>Live?

On “Faith Healer,” I’m playing an old RolandGR-303 guitar synth and triggering a VG-8. At

110 GUITAR PLAYER MARCH 2001 guitarplayer.com

a certain point, I switch over to the GR-300 synthmodule—the thing that people associate withmy synth sound. I also used the Roland synthon the end of “Question and Answer.” I play theIbanez for about the first half of the song, thenI switch over.

I also used several acoustics—all built byLinda Manzer. We’ve had a collaborative asso-ciation for about 20 years, and I own 12 or 13of her instruments. I played a nylon-string gui-tar on “Night Turns into Day.” I used a 12-stringfretless on “Counting Texas,” and a 42-stringPikasso on “Into the Dream.” That guitar fulfillssomething I’ve always wanted—to have notessustain on a guitar-like instrument so that Icould play over them. [The Pikasso guitar hasone conventional 6-string neck and 36 tunablesympathetic strings that cross the guitar’s topat various angles.]

Your touch on the nylon-string on “NightTurns into Day” is incredible—so expressive, yetwith almost no string noise. Is there a trick toavoiding the scratchy noises?

A lot of that is how the instrument is record-ed and how good the engineer is at masking thenoise. I’m sure every guitarist has run into anengineer who didn’t know how to deal withacoustic guitar—someone who placed the micin such a way that it seemed to bring out all thatstuff. There are a couple of early recordings ofme playing nylon-string guitar where the noiseis horribly distracting. I don’t think my touchhas evolved that much over the years.

Do you do practice a lot?These days, most of the hours I spend work-

ing on music are devoted to composition. I’d loveto practice more if I had time. The practicing Ido gets rolled into the time I warm up before ashow. I try to allot an hour to an hour-and-a-halfeach night before the gig. If the gig starts at 8:00,I start mindlessly playing around 6:30. I try notto actually engage myself in real music until thefirst note of the first tune onstage.

How did you record the live album?We recorded on ADATs at a 20-bit resolu-

tion. Our engineer, David Oakes, came up witha small rack of recording stuff that just sat onthe side of the stage. I honestly never knewwhen we were recording and when we weren’t.That’s one of the great things about being amusician in this era. Up until a few years ago,making a live record meant bringing a big, ex-pensive remote recording truck, or having anengineer set up in a separate room in thevenue. There were a lot of extra people and ex-tra gear involved. It was almost as if there werehuge signs all over the stage declaring: We aremaking a live record! Now we can bring onelittle rack of ADATs or DA-88s and get some-thing out of it.

Was it hard to sort through all the recordedmaterial?

It was, because I’m one of those guys who

doesn’t like listening to himself. But there wasno way around it—there was going to have tobe a lot of listening to figure out what the goodstuff was.

One thing that helped a lot is that I had a logof everything we played. After every gig, I writea tune-by-tune description of the show—whatsongs we played, how I felt about how I played,and what things I could be doing better. I’vebeen doing that for many years. I find that if Idon’t, it’s easy to get lost in the euphoria thatfollows most gigs. There are all these peopleclapping, so you forget that you sucked on thethird tune. It’s like, “Oh, everybody seemed tolike it, so what the heck?”

Does the song sequence of Trio —>Live bearany resemblance to the sets you played live?

CDs and set lists are different because they’refulfilling different functions. Live, the issue ofattention becomes a palpable reality. We’re look-ing literally right in the eyes of these people sit-ting in front of us, and I become very aware ofthe rise and fall in their attention. A CD, however,must have the intrinsic capacity to be heard overand over again.

But whether you’re sequencing a CD orputting together a set list, you must keepthings moving, and have a narrative flow. Thefundamental principles are the same: The ideais to tell a story. g

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A ss rewn��Paty

Originally printed in [month] [year] issue ofGuitar Player. Reprinted with the permissionof the Publishers of Guitar Player. Copyright[year of original publication] United Enter-

tainment Media, Inc., a CMP Information company. All rights reserved. Gui-tar Player is a Music Player Network publication, 2800 Campus Dr., San Ma-teo, CA 94403 (650) 513-4300. Subscribe at www.musicplayer.com.