I never traveled far to hear the great Pat Metheny perform. I never had to. The damn guy, that slack-jawed Midwestern jazz yokel in his striped shirts and his running shoes, kept coming to watch me listen. And if you check the records of the theaters and clubs near everywhere you’ve ever lived, you will probably find he’s been stalking you, too, for the better part of five decades.
Pat Metheny performs at the Bardavon Theater on April 13 at 8 p.m.
When I went away to SUNY Brockport, it was the 80/81 band in the campus ballroom: Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, Paul Motian. The nusic was a little over the head of this 18-year-old. When I transferred to SUNY Oswego, it was the (ah!) classic Pat Metheny Group (PMG) in the nearby Landmark Theater in Syracuse.
Over intersession, it was version 1.5 of the PMG (the transitional Offramp lineup) in the dimly lit and darkly reverberant Vassar Chapel. When I graduated and returned to the Hudson Valley, it was the fully formed v.2 of the PMG (Rodby/Wertico/Aznar, for those keeping score) at The Chance of all places, making that notoriously difficult room sound like Bayreuth.
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