Offramp marked the first recorded appearance of bassist Steve Rodby in the group (replacing Mark Egan), and also featured Brazilian "guest artist" Naná Vasconcelos. The latter featured the song "This Is Not America", a collaboration with David Bowie which reached #14 in the British Top 40 in early 1985 and #32 in the USA.
The Falcon and the Snowman followed in 1985 a soundtrack album for the film of the same name. From 1982 to 1985 the Pat Metheny Group released Offramp in 1982, a live album, Travels in 1983, and First Circle in 1984. Travels, in 1983 won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Fusion Performance in 1984.
Later on, Metheny began working with the Roland GR300 guitar synthesizer and a Synclavier System, while Mays expanded his setup with a Prophet 5 synthesizer designed by Sequential Circuits, and later with many other synthesizers. Even in this early state the band played in a wide range of styles from experimental to grassroots music. The early group featured a unique sound, particularly due to Metheny's Gibson ES-175 guitar coupled to two digital delay units and Mays' Oberheim synthesizer and Yamaha Organ. The group built upon its success through lengthy tours in the USA and Europe. This first incarnation of the group included drummer Danny Gottlieb and Mark Egan on bass guitar. The second group album, American Garage (1979), was a breakout hit, reaching #1 on the Billboard Jazz chart and crossing over onto the pop charts as well, largely on the strength of the up-tempo opening track "(Cross the) Heartland" which would become an early signature tune for the group. Metheny's next album formalized the relationship, and featured several songs co-written with Mays the album was released in 1978 as the self-titled Pat Metheny Group on the ECM label. In 1977, bassist Mark Egan joined, with Mays, Metheny, and Gottlieb, and the first version of the Pat Metheny Group was formed. The two friends would sit up late during the early 1970s and discuss the new possibilities their instruments held.Īt the same time, Jaco and I were both really on a mission to find a way to play and find a way to present our instruments in an improvisational environment that expressed our dissatisfaction with the status quo at the time. Pastorius, with whom Metheny struck up a friendship while the two toured in Joni Mitchell's backing band during her transition from her earlier folk rock compositions to jazz, had at the same time explored melodic lines for his instrument within the melodies normally heard, rather than just providing a simple bassline with the drummer, revolutionizing the way the bass guitar was viewed by the musical establishment.
Other long-standing members include bassist and producer Steve Rodby who joined in 1981, and Paul Wertico, who was the group's drummer for 18 years from 1983 to 2001.įounder Pat Metheny first emerged on the jazz scene in the mid-1970s with a pair of solo albums Bright Size Life released in 1976 - a trio album with bass guitarist Jaco Pastorius and Bob Moses, followed by Watercolors in 1977, featuring Eberhard Weber on bass, pianist Lyle Mays, and drummer Danny Gottlieb.ĭespite the constant categorization of Metheny's music as "fusion", it was always his intention to create improvised music that had a greater emphasis on bringing out harmony than anything common to what was called "fusion" of the time. The core members of the group are guitarist, composer and bandleader Pat Metheny and keyboardist and composer Lyle Mays, who was part of the group's inception in 1977. Pat Metheny Group is a jazz fusion group founded in 1977. Un article de Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre.
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