Winner of the Parliamentary Jazz Award for Best Media, 2019

by Ian Mann

February 27, 2014

/ ALBUM

Kin (<?>) continues Metheny's artistic renaissance, taking elements of old glories and casting them in a fresh light.

Pat Metheny Unity Group

Kin

(Nonesuch Records 75597 95810)


It’s almost incredible to think that guitarist and composer Pat Metheny will be celebrating his sixtieth birthday in August 2014. I’ve been listening to Metheny’s music since 1978 when we were both fresh faced young twenty somethings. A lot of water has passed under the proverbial bridge since then.

I remember the thrill of discovering Metheny’s music on the 1978 ECM album simply entitled “Pat Metheny Group”, known to our little band of Pat Meth aficionados as “the white album” although there was a certain beat combo from Liverpool who affected to have a similar claim to that title. From there it was an initial step back in time to appreciate Pat’s brilliant début “Bright Size Life” and then a voyage of discovery pretty much throughout the eighties as each new album seemed to break fresh ground, the use of synclavier on “Offramp”, the soaring wordless vocals of “First Circle”, the shock of his incendiary collaboration with Ornette Coleman on the challenging “Song X”.

I first saw Metheny play live in 1983, a Pat Metheny Group show at the then Hammersmith Odeon. I think I then saw at least one date on every Metheny UK tour between then and 2007, a visit from the great man to the UK was, and indeed still is, AN EVENT. Metheny is a true professional, all these shows were good, many of them great, but it’s six years now since I last saw him perform, and that was as a member of Gary Burton’s quartet. It’s never been cheap to see a Pat Metheny gig but in recent years he’s priced this particular fan out of the market with ticket prices in excess of fifty quid and that’s before you even factor in the travel expenses. To this long term listener he’s got a bit too greedy and I can’t deny that I’m disappointed, and before you ask press tickets are almost impossible to come by. 

I suppose it’s like any long term relationship, the initial thrill of discovery will inevitably fade and I think it’s true to say that I’ve found much of Pat’s music from the nineties and the noughties to be increasingly formulaic, particularly the PMG recordings. Even “Orchestrion”, an initially interesting project which turned Pat into the world’s largest one man band was disappointing in that the music ended up sounding almost exactly like that of the Pat Metheny Group. Instead much of Metheny’s best recent work has been done in the context of a series of trios which has allowed his talents as a guitarist and improviser to shine, his partners in three exceptional trios have been Dave Holland and Roy Haynes followed by Larry Grenadier and Bill Stewart and finally Antonio Sanchez and Christian McBride.

Following the release of “Orchestrion” things reached a nadir with the solo guitar album “What’s It All About”, a disappointingly bland set featuring Pat’s interpretations of his favourite pop songs. After that things started looking up again with the formation of the Unity Band, a project that saw Pat sharing the front line with a saxophonist for the first time since the twin tenor attack of Michael Brecker and Dewey Redman on the sprawling ECM double album “80/81” some thirty years ago. That the new man in the sax chair was the great Chris Potter was a considerable plus and the “Unity Band” album was a pretty decent offering, an old fashioned “blowing album” of the type that is rare in the Metheny canon. With an all star front line plus a stellar rhythm section of Sanchez at the drums and Ben Williams on bass the playing was predictably excellent on what proved to be the most muscular Metheny record for some time.

If the Unity Band album proved to be a return to form the next album was even better. This saw Metheny challenging himself once more on a series of interpretations of John Zorn compositions on the album “Tap; John Zorn’s Book Of Angels Vol. 20”. Essentially this was a solo recording with Metheny recording all the instruments himself with the exception of drums (the faithful Sanchez). This was the first Metheny album in years that genuinely surprised me and it was all the better for it. The only reason it didn’t get a review on these web pages was due to my focussing on mainly UK jazz acts.

So now we come to the latest offering “Kin”, which sees Metheny attempting to merge the “jam band” approach of the “Unity Band” album with the more openly compositional and orchestral methods of the Pat Metheny Group. The original quartet of Metheny, Potter, Sanchez and Williams is augmented by the talents of multi instrumentalist and vocalist Giulio Carmassi to create a more wide-screen sound. The name change from “Band” to “Group” is significant, as Metheny explains “I didn’t want to lose the energy, focus and intensity that this band had developed, I wanted to take it further. This record is more like the Technicolour or Imax version of what a band like this could be, but with that hardcore thing still sitting in the middle of it all”.

The general consensus is that Metheny has succeeded brilliantly in achieving his objectives. Something of the spark and spontaneity of the “Unity Band” remains and blends well with what Metheny describes as “more of a lush and orchestrated kind of concept that goes beyond the limits of what a straight ahead quartet might invoke”.

This new “Group” methodology is perfectly expressed by the opening “On Day One”, a fifteen minute piece featuring densely written through composed sections (thirty four pages!) interspersed with the kind of dazzlingly fluent soloing that has become Metheny’s hallmark. As the guitarist has opined his music is all about creating a context for his improvising skills, in these days of jazz education mere fluency isn’t enough and to be fair to Metheny he’s always avoided the lazy head/solos/head format. If the PMG group had become formulaic it was a formula that Metheny himself had invented. Returning to “On Day One” there’s also a storming solo by Potter, his playing inventive and incisive- and of course fluent. Ben Williams demonstrates his melodic abilities on Steve Swallow style electric bass, Sanchez gets to roam around his kit and the purity of Mirabassi’s soaring vocals on the coda recalls Pedro Aznar’s contribution on “First Circle”.

The similarly epic “Rise Up”,  which clocks in at twelve minutes, develops from tautly strummed acoustic guitar and busily exotic percussion through a swooping and soaring soprano solo from Potter before finding a calmer place with Metheny’s slowly unfolding solo, his tone warm and conversational, the archetypal Pat Metheny guitar sound. Potter also weighs in on tenor and there are a series of pleasing ethnic touches, Latin here, Eastern there, as the music unfolds. Again there’s the big finish, these opening two pieces are sure to produce a terrific audience reaction when the group tours the album later in the year.

Although both the opening epics include plenty of dynamic contrasts it’s the gently brooding “Adagia” that provides the first real change of mood and pace, the kind of romantic flourish that characterised the “Secret Story” album but this time with the added bonus of Potter’s tenor in place of the often cloying strings.
The piece acts as a kind of palette cleanser, or even overture, before the next big set piece, the lushly orchestrated, ten minute “Sign Of The Season” with lyrical solos from Metheny on guitar and Williams on acoustic bass. 

The title track bustles purposefully with Potter’s reeds and the patented sound of Metheny’s guitar synth featuring above the skittering, percolating grooves. There’s also some distinctive and excellent arco bass from Williams. Something of a rising star the young bassist is a considerable asset throughout the album. On a track whose title seems to celebrate the idea of the group as “family” it’s appropriate that there’s something of a feature for Sanchez too.

The delightful ballad “Born” features one of Metheny’s most affecting melodies, there’s a warmth and spaciousness that evokes both the wide open spaces of the Mid West of Metheny’s youth and the gentle lyricism of such eighties classics as “Farmer’s Trust” (from the 1983 PMG live album “Travels”). With Potter’s gently soulful tenor combining with Metheny’s yearning guitar sound this is one of the album’s simplest pieces yet one of its most effective.

“Genealogy” is a brief Ornette-ish interlude that might have come from “Song X” or “80/81”. It acts as precursor to “We Go On” which skilfully combines subtle electronica with r’n'b informed eighties style fusion licks. Sanchez’s powerful back-beat fuels an exultant Potter solo, for me the highlight of the piece. Otherwise I find it a bit too simplistic (by Metheny’s standards) although the pop inspired melody is likely to appeal to many.

The album concludes on a leisurely note with the gently exploratory “KQU”, with Metheny and Potter in dialogue around a folk tinged melody. There’s an agreeable warmth and intimacy about the performances that contrasts well with the earlier epic ambitions flights of fancy.

To these ears “Kin” continues Metheny’s artistic renaissance. The epic contours of the Pat Metheny Group merge well with the urgency and dynamism of the Unity Band and the new hybrid convinces pretty much throughout. Inevitably Metheny and Potter emerge as the principal soloists and both are frequently in inspired form. However the contributions of Williams and the consistently impressive Sanchez shouldn’t be overlooked. Although he plays no less then eleven instruments Caramassi’s role is largely supportive and it’s vocals that make the most distinctive contribution to the group sound. Nevertheless the sound of “Kin” is very different to that of the “Unity Band” album so the importance of his presence shouldn’t be underestimated.

As befits a man approaching sixty “Kin” finds Metheny looking both backwards and forwards, taking elements of old glories and casting them in a fresh light. There’s a vitality about this music that the old PMG was in danger of losing and it seems that with the Unity Group Metheny has got his mojo back. The Unity Group is currently on a massive world tour which will visit the UK in June for shows at The Lowry in Salford on the 10th and Hammersmith Apollo on the 11th. These shows will be among the most keenly anticipated UK jazz performances of 2014, EVENTS in other words. Will I be there? Watch this space.   

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