Today, May 8: Pat Metheny releases “You’re Everything,” second single from “MoonDial”
(May 2024) — Today, May 8, legendary American guitarist, composer, improviser and 20-time
Grammy winner Pat Metheny releases the beloved Chick Corea tune “You’re Everything,” the
second single from Metheny’s newest album, MoonDial, on BMG. The single will be available
here, and the album release will follow on July 26. Superficially, 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. The differences start with
the instrument itself, 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. This guitar, coupled with
a new kind of nylon string made in Argentina, 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. As he puts it: “It is a beautiful, rich and kind of infinite-feeling new
world for me.” The album is available now for pre-order on CD, vinyl and digital formats. It will be
available to stream here on July 26; to request an advance of the full album, reply to this email.
Metheny embarks on a European Dream Box/MoonDial tour beginning in October 2024.
The choice of repertoire on MoonDial is something like what Metheny recorded on One Quiet
Night and What’s It All About: a combination of original tunes inspired by the new instrument
and standards for which it is the perfect match. “You’re Everything” rubs shoulders with Lennon
and McCartney’s “Here, There and Everywhere” and 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” are also covered. 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:
“[Last fall’s tour] represented not just the sound and vibe of the Dream Box release, but really
was an opportunity for me to look at all the other ways I have released records and done
occasional performances in a solo setting across the years. Each one of those solo recordings, and
Dream Box as well, are unlike the others. The idea for me is to try to keep coming up with
different angles and ways of thinking about music while hopefully keeping a fundamental
aesthetic at work in all of it. In other words, to continue the research.”
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 16: London, United Kingdom (The Barbican)
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