Pat Metheny's leader album
Bright Size Life
Guitar / Electric Guitar / Synthesizer
Pat Metheny
(1954–)
Lee's Summit, MO, United States
Pat Metheny (b. 1954) — Guitar, Electric Guitar. Led Bright Size Life, Pat Metheny Group, 80/81. Worked with Jack DeJohnette, Michael Brecker, Charlie Haden.
Metheny's sound evokes vast landscapes. He uses guitar synthesizers freely, and with the Pat Metheny Group he builds epic sound-worlds. His range is staggering — from the intimate Bright Size Life with Jaco Pastorius to collaborations with Ornette Coleman and Derek Bailey. Few musicians have moved so freely across such different territories.
Pat Metheny's albums
Michael Brecker
Pat Metheny said
'When I played with Jaco, the bass became something completely different'
On the recording of Bright Size Life (1976), his debut album featuring Jaco.
Pat Metheny's videos
August 1981, Stadtpark, Hamburg. The Pat Metheny Group
Pat Metheny's videos
July 9, 1990, Jazz à Vienne. The Parallel Realities tour — Herbie Hancock
Pat Metheny's leader album
In 1976, the 21-year-old Pat Metheny
Pat Metheny's leader album
80/81
Pat Metheny Group album co-led by Pat Metheny
Pat Metheny Group
Song X (1986) paired Pat Metheny
Pat Metheny's albums
Metheny
Pat Metheny's albums
Pat Metheny first heard Michael Brecker's tenor not on a jazz record but on a pop hit pouring out of a car radio at a big intersection. The two would later become close collaborators — but the introduction came over the airwaves, through pop.
— Statement stmt-pat-metheny-on-michael-brecker
Pat Metheny's albums
Pilgrimage (2007) was the last record Michael Brecker made, cut while he was dying. Pat Metheny, who played guitar on it, said Brecker had never sounded better—that a new element, a kind of seriousness in every gesture, had entered his playing. The illness deepened it rather than thinning it out.
— Statement stmt-pat-metheny-on-michael-brecker-2
Pat Metheny's albums
In 1976, a still largely unknown Jaco Pastorius played bass on Joni Mitchell's folk album Hejira — the same year he released his own debut and joined Weather Report. His avant-garde fretless playing found its way onto one of the era's defining singer-songwriter records.
— Statement stmt-michael-brecker-on-joni-mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Don AliasPat Metheny's albums
On 80/81 (1980), Michael Brecker — then the most in-demand studio saxophonist in New York, and heard as a fusion player — is trading with Dewey Redman and Charlie Haden, both out of the free jazz world. Pat Metheny wrote all of the material.
— Statement stmt-jack-dejohnette-on-pat-metheny
Pat Metheny said
I was driving by a major intersection in my town. On the radio was the James Taylor single 'Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight' with this tenor player on it.
Metheny recalls the moment he first heard Brecker's tenor, on James Taylor's record.
↗ NPR
Brecker's 'Pilgrimage' a Welcome, Not a Farewell
2007-06-18
Pat Metheny said
He sounds better than ever. I would say that there's a new component in Mike's playing after all of this, a certain kind of seriousness that he's putting into each gesture.
Metheny speaking during the sessions for Brecker's final album Pilgrimage, after his cancer treatment.
↗ NPR
Brecker's 'Pilgrimage' a Welcome, Not a Farewell
2007-06-18
About Pat Metheny
Pat wrote all the pieces and he's a great writer, composer and producer so the concerts were just amazing. Really highly creative, everybody got along great.
On Pat Metheny's writing for the 1980 album 80/81 and the quintet's live dates.
↗ Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program
Jack DeJohnette NEA Jazz Master Interview
2011-11-10
About Pat Metheny
The band with Joni Mitchell, Shadows and Light Band, was really extraordinary. It consisted of Jaco, Pat Metheny, myself, Don Alias and Lyle Mays and Joni, of course.
Brecker looking back on Joni Mitchell's Shadows and Light band.
↗ Guitar World
How Joni Mitchell formed an unlikely partnership with Jaco Pastorius
2025-04-17
📖Doing NothingPark / ×
A park by the river. Yoshi has a book open but isn't reading. On learning to just sit with the emptiness.