Pat Metheny Begins Extensive North American Dream Box Tour Sep 13, Featuring Music From All His Solo Recordings

(August 2023) — After a globe-trotting 33-stop tour this past spring and summer with his Side-Eye band, legendary American guitarist, composer and improviser Pat Metheny takes to the road again, this time as a solo act, beginning on September 13 in Homer, NY.

With currently scheduled coast-to-coast performances in 51 venues across 29 states and more to be added in March and April 2024, by the end of the Dream Box tour in 2024 Metheny will have given at least 76 performances of the program in the United States. The tour gives him the chance to explore his approach to being a solo performer in both traditional and unorthodox ways in the kinds of intimate venues that will offer audiences an absolutely unique concert experience.

He explains:

“I’m really looking forward to doing this pretty significant tour that will just be me. I’m going to draw on all my solo records, from New Chautauqua on, and I’ve written a lot of that kind of material: narrative, storytelling, with expositional-type improvising. I did a test run of solo concerts a couple years ago and I really, really enjoyed it. It’s going to be something quite different for me, that intimate relationship. I think I’ll probably actually talk some on the gig, which I generally don’t like to do, but it sort of fits with what this evening will be.”

Calling the guitarist’s new album, Dream Box, “a fascinating peek into his creative mind,” Pitchfork went on to rave:

“Metheny remains underrated for his unending drive to experiment and challenge himself. … No two of his records involve quite the same approach, whether that means finding new collaborators, new instrumentation, or on releases like Dream Box, new ways to channel his creative process. … The new compositions are highlights, tracing their central motifs to unexpected destinations … his aim here is for simple but immersive mood-setting. After an introduction of electric guitar against chiming, slightly dissonant acoustic chords, the gorgeous “Ole & Gard” swiftly finds its feet and cycles through various settings to return to a recurring bluesy refrain. “From the Mountains” is more formless but just as memorable, navigating its eight-minute runtime with a dreamy sense of focus: The effect is like watching the sun rise over an unfamiliar city, new contours filling in as the light starts to spread.”

 

Metheny has produced a catalog of recordings that, measured in terms of influence, is in a class by itself: 50 recordings that have won 20 Grammys in twelve different categories. New Chautauqua (1979) almost single-handedly defined an era of instrumental steel-stringed Americana that spawned legions of imitators. Zero Tolerance for Silence pushed the boundaries of modern music-making once again and served as a companion piece to the Grammy-winning disc Secret Story. The Orchestrion Project – for which Metheny wrote the music and built a series of instruments to be controlled by his guitar, recording the results both in the studio and in a live concert – was so new in conception and execution that even a decade-plus later, it still stands apart from any previous ideas of what a solo performer might achieve alone onstage.

Alongside those projects was yet another stream of development: two back-to-back, Grammy-winning solo baritone guitar recordings: One Quiet Night and What’s It All About, the predecessors to Dream Box. Not only do they shine as 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 six-string guitar.

The title Dream Box has multiple meanings. “Box” is jazz slang for a hollow-body guitar, and Dream Box documents many different guitar sounds. But “Dream” is the key here, as in the dreaming of Metheny’s singular imagination and in the kind of “dream logic” that is hard to pin down but absolutely coherent. In Metheny’s own words: “Dreams in their broadest sense make up the vibe with this set. Music exists for me in an elusive state, often at its best when discovered apart from any particular intention.”

About Pat Metheny

Pat Metheny was born in Lee’s Summit, MO on August 12, 1954 into a musical family. Starting on trumpet at the age of 8, Metheny switched to guitar at age 12. By the age of 15, he was working regularly with the best jazz musicians in Kansas City, receiving valuable on-the-bandstand experience at an unusually young age. Metheny first burst onto the international jazz scene in 1974. Over the course of his three-year stint with vibraphone great Gary Burton, the young Missouri native already displayed his soon-to-become trademarked playing style, which blended the loose and flexible articulation customarily reserved for horn players with an advanced rhythmic and harmonic sensibility: a way of playing and improvising that was modern in conception but grounded deeply in the jazz tradition of melody, swing, and the blues. With the release of his first album, Bright Size Life (1975), he reinvented the traditional “jazz guitar” sound for a new generation of players. Throughout his career, Pat Metheny has continued to redefine the genre by utilizing new technology and constantly working to evolve the improvisational and sonic potential of his instrument.

Metheny’s versatility is nearly without peer on any instrument. Over the years, he has performed with artists as diverse as Steve Reich to Ornette Coleman to Herbie Hancock to Jim Hall to Milton Nascimento to David Bowie. Metheny’s body of work includes compositions for solo guitar, small ensembles, electric and acoustic instruments, large orchestras, and ballet pieces and even the robotic instruments of his Orchestrion project, while always sidestepping the limits of any one genre.

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, in 1996. He has also recently received honorary doctorates from McGill University in Montreal and from the University of Missouri.

He also has been instrumental in the development of several new kinds of guitars such as the 42-string Pikasso guitar, Ibanez’s Pat Metheny series jazz guitars, and a variety of other custom instruments.

It is one thing to attain popularity as a musician, but it is another to receive the kind of acclaim Metheny has garnered from critics and peers. In 2018, he became an NEA Jazz Master, the highest honor the United States bestows on jazz artists.

Over the years, he has won countless polls as “Best Jazz Guitarist” and awards, including three gold records for (Still Life) Talking, Letter from Home, and Secret Story. He has also won 20 Grammy Awards spread out over a variety of different categories including Best Rock Instrumental, Best Contemporary Jazz Recording, Best Jazz Instrumental Solo, and Best Instrumental Composition, at one point winning seven consecutive Grammys for seven consecutive albums. In 2015 he was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame, becoming only the fourth guitarist to be included (along with Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian and Wes Montgomery) and its youngest member. Metheny has spent much of his life on tour, often doing more than 100 shows a year since becoming a bandleader in the 70’s. At the time of this writing, he 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.

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Pat Metheny: tour dates
Sep 13
Homer, NY
Center for the Arts

Sep 14
York, PA
Appell Center for the Performing Arts – Capitol Theatre

Sep 16
Portland, ME
State Theatre

Sep 17
Red Bank, NJ
Count Basie Center for the Arts

Sep 19
Ridgefield, CT
Ridgefield Playhouse

Sep 20
Hartford, CT
Infinity Music Hall

Sep 21
Boston, MA
The Wilbur Theatre

Sep 22
Glenside, PA
The Keswick Theatre

Sep 23
Stony Brook, NY
Staller Center for the Arts

Sep 25
Burlington, VT
Flynn Center for the Performing Arts

Sep 26
Troy, NY
Troy Savings Bank Music Hall

Sep 27
Buffalo, NY
University of Buffalo Center for the Arts

Sep 29
Indianapolis, IN
Indy Jazz Fest (Clowes Memorial Hall)

Sep 30
Royal Oak, MI
Royal Oak Music Theatre

Oct 1
Chicago, IL
Thalia Hall

Oct 3
Des Moines, IA
Hoyt Sherman Place

Oct 4
Saint Paul, MN
Ordway Center for the Performing Arts

Oct 5
Milwaukee, WI
Marcus Performing Arts Center

Oct 6
Louisville, KY
Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts – Bomhard Theater

Oct 8
Fort Wayne, IN
Clyde Theatre

Oct 9
Nashville, TN
Ryman Auditorium

Oct 10
Memphis, TN
Minglewood Hall

Oct 11
Dallas, TX
Majestic Theatre

Oct 12
Austin, TX
Paramount Theatre

Oct 14
Albuquerque, NM
KiMo Theatre

Oct 15
Denver, CO
Paramount Theatre

Oct 16
Boulder, CO
Boulder Theater

Oct 18–21
Park City, UT
Egyptian Theatre

Oct 24
Tucson, AZ
Fox Tucson Theatre

Oct 25
Mesa, AZ
Mesa Arts Center – Ikeda Theater

Oct 27
Irvine, CA
Irvine Barclay Theatre

Oct 28
El Cajon, CA
The Magnolia

Oct 29
Los Angeles, CA
Royce Hall at UCLA

Oct 30
Santa Barbara, CA
Lobero Theatre

Nov 1
Sacramento, CA
Crest Theatre

Nov 2
Santa Cruz, CA
Rio Theatre

Nov 3–5 (7 & 9:30)
Berkeley, CA
Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse

Nov 7
Portland, OR
Revolution Hall

Nov 8–12 (7:30 & 9:30)
Seattle, WA
Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley

March 12
Springfield, MO
The Gillioz Center for Arts and Entertainment

March 15
Meridian, MS
Riley Center at Mississippi State University

March 17
Birmingham, AL
The Lyric Theatre

March 19
Fort Lauderdale, FL
The Parker Playhouse

March 20
Gainesville, FL
Phillips Center for the Performing Arts

March 21
Clearwater, FL
Capitol Theatre

March 23
Stuart, FL
The Lyric Theatre

March 28
Charleston, SC
Charleston Music Hall

March 29
Charlotte, NC
Blumenthal Performing Arts Knight Theater

March 30
Durham, NC
Carolina Theatre of Durham

April 5
Morristown, NJ
Mayo Performing Arts Center

April 7
New York, NY
92nd St Y

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© 21C Media Group, August 2023