The Latest Release: Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV)
Pat Metheny has unveiled the latest chapter in his wildly prolific career –SIDE-EYE, a new setting featuring the 20-time GRAMMY winner accompanied by a handpicked and rotating cast of players featuring some of the most exciting and innovative new musicians on the New York scene. The new album, SIDE-EYE NYC was released in September 2021 through BMG Modern Recordings. Recorded just before the pandemic, SIDE-EYE (V1.1V) deftly balances a mix of stunning new originals with inventive reworkings of some of Metheny’s most beloved compositions such as “Timeline,” which originally featured Metheny performing with fellow icons Michael Brecker and Elvin Jones. Now bringing that same unmistakable spirit to a new crop of players who grew up with his music as a part of their musical heritage, Metheny’s SIDE-EYE seamlessly flowsin his usual genre-defying way from post-organ-trio grooves to expansive mini-suite forms to simply Metheny at his most rocking.
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Credits: Jimmy Katz (1), John Peden (2)
About the Artist
Releasing over forty albums throughout his illustrious career, 20-time Grammy Award winner, Metheny is the only artist to be awarded Grammys in 12 different categories including Best Rock Instrumental, Best Contemporary Jazz Recording, Best Jazz Instrumental Solo, and Best Instrumental Composition, among others.
First bursting onto the international scene in 1974, his unbounded musical range is nearly without peer. Over the years, he has performed with artists as diverse as Steve Reich to Ornette Coleman to Herbie Hancock to Jim Hall to Milton Nascimento to David Bowie while seamlessly projecting his own identity regardless of setting.
Born into a musical family, Metheny started on trumpet at the age of 8 before switching to guitar at age 12. By the age of 15, he was working regularly with the best jazz musicians in his hometown of Kansas City, receiving valuable on-the-bandstand experience at an unusually young age.
By the age of 18, he became the youngest teacher ever at the University of Miami. At 19, he became the youngest teacher ever at the Berklee College of Music, where he also received an honorary doctorate more than twenty years later (1996).
Over the years, Metheny has garnered widespread acclaim from critics and peers, winning countless polls as Best Jazz Guitarist and awards, including three Gold-certified albums for Still Life (Talking), Letter From Home, and Secret Story. While the only artist to have been awarded 20 Grammy Awards in 12 different categories, his band The Pat Metheny Group won an unprecedented seven consecutive Grammys for seven consecutive albums. In 2013, Metheny was inducted into the Downbeat Hall of Fame being only one of four guitarists to be included, joining Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian and Wes Montgomery. In 2018, Metheny became an NEA Jazz Master, the highest honor awarded to a jazz musician in the USA.