Pat Metheny at Massey Hall — Alone, Not Alone

Before Friday night's performance at Massey Hall, an announcement informed the audience that, at the artist's request, there would be no photography or recording of any kind, and that cell phones were to be turned off.

The ushers took that request seriously. Very seriously.

Even the slightest hint of a glowing phone screen seemed enough to bring one of them into action.

Fair enough. Metheny wanted us listening to the music rather than watching it through our phones. I can respect that.

But it does present something of a challenge when you're planning to review an evening consisting almost entirely of instrumental music.

I was going to have to remember what I'd witnessed and heard.

And there was an awful lot to remember.

The evening began with a wonderful bit of theatre.

As the house lights dimmed, four musicians appeared at the back of the hall and began making their way through the audience, playing percussion as they went. Naturally, everyone's attention turned toward the procession moving through the aisles.

Meanwhile, Metheny had appeared onstage, playing guitar in time with the percussion.

Instead of five musicians simply walking onstage and launching into a tune, the music had already begun all around us before the band had even assembled.

And once they did, things got interesting.

Metheny's current Side-Eye III+ band includes Chris Fishman on keyboards, Joe Dyson on drums, Jermaine Paul on bass and Leonard Patton on percussion and vocals.

Calling these four musicians Metheny's backing band would be doing them a considerable disservice.

They're all monster players.

I was surprised to hear “Bright Size Life” arrive as early as the third number. The title track from Metheny's 1976 debut solo album is one of the pieces that established his distinctive guitar voice, and I had expected something that familiar to appear considerably later in the evening.

Not that I was complaining.

Metheny's tone is unmistakable, particularly on his Ibanez PM signature archtop, the hollow-body jazz guitar that was his main instrument throughout the evening. But he was constantly changing guitars, moving between steel-string and nylon-string acoustics, regular and baritone instruments, and guitars equipped with synthesizer controllers.

And then there's that unmistakable Roland guitar synthesizer sound.

Any longtime Metheny fan knows it. A longtime friend and I have always joked that it's Metheny's version of distortion. When he really starts wailing, bending notes and pushing a solo into another gear, that's often the sound you hear. It's become as much a part of his musical identity as the warm tone of his archtop.

Following one of Dyson's drum solos, Metheny came in on a nylon-string acoustic, somehow producing synthesizer effects and an octave-below bass sound along with the guitar itself. With just Metheny and Dyson playing, I found myself marvelling at how much sound he was getting out of that one instrument.

His phrasing has a way of making even complicated passages sound entirely natural.

But much of what fascinated me Friday night was happening around him.

Chris Fishman was surrounded by keyboards. Quite literally.

From my vantage point, stage right, I could see two modern keyboards facing the audience, an older-looking synthesizer facing stage left, a Hammond organ on another side and a grand piano behind him.

Fishman moved between them throughout the evening, but it was that older synthesizer that particularly caught my attention. He didn't play it often, but when he did, its sound was remarkably close to Metheny's familiar Roland guitar synthesizer tone.

At least twice, I found myself watching Fishman at that synthesizer while Metheny had his Roland strapped on, trying to work out which musician was responsible for what I was hearing.

And then there were the Orchestrion instruments.

Years ago, Metheny developed an extraordinary one-man performance built around a collection of robotic instruments that could be triggered by his guitar, allowing him to effectively conduct an entire mechanical orchestra. Some parts could be programmed in advance, while others responded to what he played.

Friday night, two remnants from the Orchestrion days were onstage: a xylophone and glockenspiel, complete with robotic mechanisms and illuminated bars.

I'd seen the concept before, so the technology itself wasn't the mystery.

What I couldn't always figure out was who was controlling them.

At times, the instruments clearly seemed to follow what Metheny was playing on his Roland guitar synthesizer. Then he'd move into something else, and the mechanical percussion would continue doing its own thing.

Was Fishman triggering it from his keyboards?

Quite possibly. But there were passages where neither musician seemed to be playing anything that corresponded to what the robotic instruments were doing.

After the show, my friend did a little digging and found that some of the Orchestrion parts were preprogrammed.

That helped explain the moments when neither Metheny nor Fishman appeared to be driving them.

Whatever the arrangement, it was fascinating to watch these mechanical instruments become part of the ensemble.

Jermaine Paul was superb on upright bass. His solos were among the evening's highlights, showing off some remarkable chops without ever losing sight of the music. He could stretch out and take the spotlight, then settle right back into the rhythm section as though nothing unusual had happened.

Joe Dyson, meanwhile, was something else entirely.

I've seen plenty of drummers who play hard, and plenty who play complicated things. Dyson seemed determined to demonstrate that the two aren't mutually exclusive.

He could hit with astonishing force while maintaining intricate, fast-moving patterns with remarkable precision.

Metheny has long favoured having his drummers set up facing inward toward him rather than straight out at the audience. Friday night's arrangement gave those of us on stage right an exceptional view of Dyson at work.

And what a drummer to have that view of.

One particular sequence stayed with me.

Metheny and Fishman were playing together as a duo when Dyson entered, shaking a tambourine in time with them.

Then he began adding the kick drum, stomping out the pulse beneath the tambourine.

Gradually, Metheny and Fishman stepped back, leaving Dyson to take over.

He put down the tambourine and launched into a full drum solo, but what impressed me most was that the solo never lost its connection to the music that had preceded it.

It wasn't a drummer stopping the show to demonstrate everything he could do.

It was a musical idea being handed from one player to another.

And Dyson ran with it.

Leonard Patton provided more of the evening's highlights.

His percussion work added to an already formidable rhythmic foundation, but it was his singing that particularly caught my attention.

Metheny's music has long incorporated wordless vocals and vocal lines built around syllables rather than conventional lyrics. Patton handled these beautifully, adding a distinctly human voice to the arrangements.

At times his voice was processed to create the impression of multiple singers — two, three, perhaps even five voices emerging from one man. But for most of the night, his own unadorned voice was more than enough.

And the audience certainly noticed.

A couple of numbers featuring Patton prominently brought the crowd to its feet for standing ovations. There were plenty of those throughout the evening, including for Metheny himself, but Patton earned some particularly enthusiastic responses.

A friend and I have affectionately referred to this sort of singing as Metheny's “yodelling” for years.

I know. It's not exactly the correct musical terminology.

But if you've spent much time listening to the Pat Metheny Group, you probably know what I mean.

Another interesting change of pace came when Paul and Patton left the stage, leaving Metheny, Fishman and Dyson to play as a traditional organ trio.

Guitar, Hammond organ and drums.

Fishman's left hand handled the bass duties so convincingly that the absence of a bass player hardly mattered.

And for some reason, the sound of that Hammond organ immediately made me think of public skating.

I have no idea why that's where my brain went.

Perhaps some long-buried memory of organ music echoing around an ice rink.

Whatever the reason, there I was at Massey Hall, listening to three extraordinary jazz musicians, and suddenly thinking about skating in circles.

That's the trouble with music. You never quite know where it's going to take you.

Throughout the evening, the band moved between familiar compositions from different periods of Metheny's career and plenty of material from his new Side-Eye III album, giving this particular lineup room to establish its own identity.

I also appreciated Metheny's repeated expressions of affection for Lake Ontario. Not just the Great Lakes generally, but specifically LAKE ONTARIO, which he seemed determined to mention by name at every opportunity. He never explained the emphasis or identified anyone he might have been poking fun at, but I suspect the point wasn't lost on much of the audience.

Thankfully, I'd listened to the album a few times during the week leading up to the concert, so I had some familiarity with the new material before hearing what the band did with it onstage.

There were beautiful melodic passages, challenging rhythmic arrangements and plenty of opportunities for individual players to stretch out.

But what impressed me most was how naturally everything worked together.

There were certainly plenty of solos, and some spectacular ones at that. But the best moments came when those individual voices became part of something larger.

The exchange between Metheny and Fishman. Paul's bass lines beneath the more elaborate arrangements. Dyson finding ways to push the music without overwhelming it. Patton's voice floating through passages where another instrument might have made everything too crowded.

Even the robotic Orchestrion instruments had a place in the conversation.

By the time the encores arrived, we'd been treated to an extraordinary amount of music.

The melodies were beautiful without being simple, the arrangements complex without becoming inaccessible, and the musicianship astonishing without feeling like an athletic competition.

Friday night demonstrated all of that.

I should also thank JAZZ.FM91 for the excellent seats.

And what a night to have that view.

I arrived expecting to hear one of the great guitarists of our time.

I certainly did.

But Metheny had brought four extraordinary musicians with him, and each contributed something memorable to the evening. This was very much a band performance, not simply a guitarist surrounded by talented sidemen.

And occasionally, I found myself watching instruments that appeared to be playing themselves.

Pat Metheny at Massey Hall.

Five musicians.

A couple of mechanical accomplices.

And an awful lot of music to remember without a single note in my phone.