Pat Metheny

Growing up in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, U.S. Metheny won a Down Beat scholarship and attended a one-week jazz camp at 15, under the creative wing of guitarist Attila Zoller, who subsequently invited young Metheny to New York City, U.S. to meet Jim Hall and Ron Carter. After a brief stint studying at the University of Miami, he was soon offered a teaching position there, before moving to Boston, U.S. to the Berklee College of Music where he made a name for himself as the wildly talented teenager with a teaching assitantship along with jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton.

Playing and contributing to a number of groups including Gary Burton’s band, Metheny soon began releasing his own material including his debut album “Bright Size Life” and the follow-up 1977’s “Watercolours” featuring pianist and long-term collaborator Lyle Mays.

Before long Metheny became ECM’s top artist and one of the most popular jazzmen of all time, making a name for himself for his highly creative, unpredictable style, with his freelance side projects often producing the most dynamic and unexpected results. The list of artists Metheny has worked with is impressively long and includes the likes of Ornettle Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Dave Holland and David Bowie.

In 1977 he founded the Pat Metheny Group, and their first release in 1978, featured the infamous writing duo of Metheny and Mays, which would go on to span 25 years and 15 albums. The group's sophomore album “American Garage” (1980) hit the mainstream with an upbeat opening track “(Cross the) Heartland” which became synonymous with the band’s success. The Pat Metheny Group went on to explore their sound, experimenting with various styles of music; inspired by new members Nana Vasconcelos and Aznar the band introduced latin-induced music to the group for the album “Offramp”.

The band left ECM records following a dispute and released their subsequent albums “Still Life” (1987), “Letter From Home” (1989), “We Live Here” (1995), “Quartet” (1996) and “Imaginary Day” (1997) on Geffen Records, the latter three represented a move away from the Latin style that had influenced many of their earlier albums.

Metheny continues to tour with an impressive line-up of musicians, has received many Grammy Awards, the first five of which were consecutive in the category of Best Jazz Fusion Performance, and remains one of the greatest progressive jazz musicians in the world.