needle to noodle

i was introduced to pat metheny by this french girl, an ex-girlfriend who had hit the stereotype jackpot: mussy hair, oversized ratty sweater, art major/philosophy minor, a cup of luke-warm coffee in one hand, a smoldering hand-rolled butt in the other, with wisps of acrid smoke twisting slowly in the air.

that was during the time of “water color” and “new chautauqua.” even now, when i hear those albums, i get flashbacks of the pathetic sessions at various berkeley coffee shops where i engaged in hours of mental masturbation – pretentious debates on foucault (psychiatry) and derrida (same, of course) – just to be close enough to inhale her smoky exhale.

humiliation aside, it was interesting to trace the evolution of metheny’s sound from the folky “bright size life,” that revealed his lee’s summit, mo., roots to the scandinavian cool of “water colors” and the near-ambient “new chauauqua.” but the only nice thing i had to say about “american garage” was the dreamy cover featuring airstream trailers. i understood what he was going for – a jazz-rock fusion with a mid-west twist – but it just didn’t work, at least not with manfred eicher’s chilly production.

rightly or not, i held those albums responsible for the rise of what i called the cali hot-tub music, best exemplified by will ackerman’s windham hill releases of the early ‘80s. perpetrated by such navel-gazing limp noodles as george winston and ackerman himself, the basic problem was that unlike metheny, who at times came across as experimental or at least adventurous, ackerman et. al. were milquetoast. not everything on windham hill was shit, but the bad shit was so bad that they tainted all the rest, including my regard for metheny.

although later albums like “80/81” or even the overtly pop-tinged “offramp” (check the james taylor-inspired “james,” for example) redeemed him somewhat for me, it was his scathing critique of fusion keyboardist jeff lorber's former sidekick kenny g that really made me forgive him for past transgressions. when i first read the post on metheny’s web site, i thought it was the kind of straight talk we needed in music criticism: sincere, factual, and above all, infused with passion and intelligence about music and musicians.

for many years now, i haven’t really thought much about metheny, mostly because i’ve been immersed in hip-hop and dance music. at the airport the other day, there was the usual annoying hum of lite-jazz muzak in the background. it took me a minute to realize that the narcotic melody was carried by the timber of synthetic harmonica popularized by metheny, most notably on his 1981 minor hit, “are you going with me?”

Posted by cellpharmer at October 26, 2007 11:06 PM