Pat Metheny Group: The Way Up.


The Pat Metheny Group need little introduction. Regards mainstream acceptance and popularity, they are probably one of the more successful jazz groups of the last couple of decades. So The Way Up was released in January 2005 (Nonesuch), to much expectation. A ‘concept’ album in that there were, loosely, four tracks, all forming part of a one musical theme that was to be elaborated on and developed. And right from the start the problem is apparent.

No-one can doubt the musical and performing skills of the three base musicians, Lyle Mays, Steve Rodby, and of course Pat himself. Here they are augmented by contributions from Mexican drummer Antonio Sanchez, Vietnamese trumpeter Coung Vu and Swiss-born harmonica player Gregoire Maret.

This album is basically 68 minutes of non-stop music, the breaks between the four tracks almost impossible to mark, and if I have it correct, intentionally so. But for all that, and the excellent playing throughout, this is a disappointing and frustrating recording. No doubt there is lovely music here - at times - but there is also an overall restlessness, seemingly a need to demonstrate their wealth of ideas, that eventually alienates rather than drawing in. This no more obvious when they do get it right only to break the musical flow with another flourish, another distraction or a needless diversion. Difficult to refer to track by track of course but there are many fine ‘moments’. None more so than 18 minutes into track three, when Pat provides a strange syncopated guitar accompaniment, while Coung-Vu bends and stretches some lovely trumpet work, suggesting the grandeur and desolation of a twenty-first century urban landscape – and just when you are beginning to get into it – the idea disappears with, first, a rather typical guitar lick from Pat and then the introduction of some melodramtic, cinematic-style orchestration. Track four begins with, for once, a simple but effective piano line from Lyle Mays but soon dissolves into what is basically fairly typical PMG fare. The opening track, ‘Opening’ (sic) begins well, an effective collage of sound before the guitar(s) enter, yet again it soon becomes over busy, treading water regards the group’s previous work.

It has to be said this is an indulgent work, that for all its virtuoso playing, its multiple overdubs, its grandiose ambition never quite comes off. It frustrates and does not enlighten. Definitely a work for hard-core PMG fans

Copyright (C) Peter Hodgins Nov 2007

The Way Up: Pat Metheny Group. BUY