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Today, July 26: Pat Metheny releases new album, MoonDial, on BMG

(July 2024) — Today, July 26, legendary American guitarist, composer, improviser, and 20-time Grammy winner Pat Metheny releases his newest album, MoonDial, on BMG. This follows the release of three singles from the album: the title track, a Metheny original; Chick Corea’s “You’re Everything”; and the Lennon-McCartney tune “Here, There and Everywhere.” MoonDial is reminiscent of the guitarist’s previous recordings One Quiet Night (2003) and What’s It All About (2011), in that it is purely a solo album with no overdubs, recorded on baritone guitar. But this time the instrument is a custom-built nylon-string baritone guitar made by Linda Manzer, a close collaborator of Metheny’s and one of the world’s premier luthiers. Coupled with a new kind of nylon string made in Argentina, this guitar allowed Metheny to use a tuning system he has previously found possible only with steel strings, and his excitement about the new setup made him do something he has never done before: conceive, record, and release a new album in the middle of another tour. He elaborates:

Moondial is a really special record for me. It’s incredibly personal: every second on that record is invested with the central issues for me of what it is to be a musician. In terms of touch, in terms of sound, in terms of harmony, in terms of melody. Somehow, there’s something about this instrument where I can really zero in on things.”

The album is available now on CD, vinyl and digital formats, and for streaming here. Metheny embarks on a European Dream Box/MoonDial tour beginning in October 2024.

MoonDial is a combination of original tunes inspired by the new instrument and standards for which it is the perfect match. In addition to the three singles already released, tracks include the Matt Dennis standards “Angel Eyes” and “Everything Happens to Me” (combined with Bernstein’s “Somewhere”); David Raskin’s “My Love and I,” written for the Burt Lancaster western Apache; and the traditional “Londonderry Air.” Many of Metheny’s originals were written during last fall’s Dream Box tour, as he explored the possibilities of the new setup, but he also revisited his own tune “This Belongs to You,” originally recorded with his Unity Band in 2012. All the material shares a vibe Metheny calls “intense contemplation,” with the instrument itself taking center stage. The guitarist explains:

“Somebody said its hardcore mellow, which I think is a good way to put it. But in other ways it’s so intense! It’s like if you turn it up really loud – which I suggest – you’ll go to some other place, especially if you go from the beginning to the end. That sort of transcendent ambition thing has always been what I have experienced myself from my favorite musicians.”

Metheny has already produced a catalogue of 50+ recordings that have scored 39 Grammy nominations and 20 wins in twelve different categories. Measured in terms of influence, this catalogue is in a class by itself. New Chautauqua from 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 stands apart from any previous ideas of what a solo performer might achieve alone onstage.

Alongside those projects was yet another stream of development. His two back-to-back solo baritone guitar recordings, One Quiet Night and What’s It All About, were both Grammy winners and the stylistic predecessors to MoonDial. Not only do they shine as pure solo guitar recordings, but the entirely new tuning system that they introduced allowed Metheny to create an almost orchestral range, from bass to soprano, that is heard again on MoonDial.

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, Ornette Coleman, Herbie Hancock, Jim Hall, Milton Nascimento, and 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 taught music workshops all over the world, from the Dutch Royal Conservatory to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz to clinics in Asia and South America. He has 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.

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. 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. In 2018 he was named an NEA Jazz Master, the nation’s highest honor in jazz, awarded to the recipients “for their lifetime achievements and exceptional contributions to the advancement of jazz.” Metheny has spent much of his life on tour, often doing more than 100 shows a year, since becoming a bandleader in the 70s. 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: MoonDial

Label: BMG Modern Recordings
Release date: July 26, 2024
Format: CD, vinyl and digital

  1. MoonDial (Metheny)
  2. La Crosse (Metheny)
  3. You’re Everything (Corea/Potter)
  4. Here, There and Everywhere (Lennon/McCartney)
  5. We Can’t See It, But It’s There (Metheny)
  6. Falcon Love (Metheny)
  7. Everything Happens To Me/Somewhere (Dennis/Adair; Bernstein/Sondheim)
  8. Londonderry Air (Traditional)
  9. This Belongs To You (Metheny)
  10. Shōga (Metheny)
  11. My Love And I (Raskin/Mercer)
  12. Angel Eyes (Dennis/Brent)
  13. MoonDial (epilogue) (Metheny)

Pat Metheny: Dream Box/MoonDial European tour dates

 

Oct 1: Inowrocław, Poland (Inowrocław Cultural Centre)

Oct 3 & 4: Gdańsk, Poland (Stary Maneż)

Oct 5: Warsaw, Poland (Palladium)

Oct 6: Wrocław, Poland (National Forum of Music)

Oct 7: Katowice, Poland (National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra)

Oct 8: Budapest, Hungary (Erkel Theatre)

Oct 9: St. Pölten, Austria (Festspielhaus St. Pölten)

Oct 11: Nancy, France (Opera National de Lorraine – Nancy Jazz Pulsations)

Oct 12: Besançon, France (Théátre Ledoux)

Oct 13: Paris, France (L’Olympia)

Oct 14: Cologne, Germany (Cologne Philharmonie)

Oct 15: Groningen, Netherlands (De Oosterpoort)

Oct 17: Munich, Germany (Isarphilharmonie)

Oct 18: Ludwigshafen, Germany (Feierabendhaus)

Oct 19: Hamburg, Germany (Laeiszhalle)

Oct 20: Frankfurt Am Main, Germany (Alte Oper)

Oct 21: Berlin, Germany (Berliner Philharmonie)

Oct 23: Eindhoven, Netherlands (Muziekgebouw Eindhoven Main Hall)

Oct 24: Utrecht, Netherlands (TivoliVredenburg)

Oct 25: Brussels, Belgium (BOZAR – Henry le Boeuf Hall)

Oct 27: Zurich, Switzerland (Kongresshaus Zürich)

Oct 28: Geneva, Switzerland (Victoria Hall)

Oct 29: Genova, Italy (Teatro Carlo Felice)

Oct 31: Udine, Italy (Teatro Nuovo Giovanni da Udine)

Nov 1: Brescia, Italy (Gran Teatro Morato)

Nov 2: Milan, Italy (Teatro Lirico)

Nov 3: Bologna, Italy (Teatro Manzoni)

Nov 4: Rome, Italy (Sala Santa Cecilia)

Nov 6: Vitrolles, France (Salle Guy Obino)

Nov 7: Barcelona, Spain (Palau de la Música Catalana)

Nov 8: Cartagena, Spain (Auditorio El Batel)

Nov 9: Málaga, Spain (Teatro Cervantes)

Nov 10: Huelva, Spain (Auditorio Casa Colón)

Nov 11: Madrid, Spain (National Music Auditorium)

Nov 14: Birmingham, UK (Birmingham Symphony Hall)

Nov 15 & 16: London, United Kingdom (The Barbican)

Nov 17: Cambridgeshire, UK (Saffron Hall) 

 

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© 21C Media Group, July 2024

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