Pat Metheny has become extremely famous for his distinctive brand of Latin jazz, post-bop fusion. Yet he hasn't been afraid to venture farther than his popular reputation would suggest, collaborating at different points with Derek Bailey, David Bowie, Steve Reich, and Ornette Coleman.
Metheny's muse has recently led him into even stranger territories, as evidenced by his new project, Orchestrion, which comes in the form of album, machine, and tour. But more of that anon. Metheny began his concert in support of the project in Brussels' packed Bozar Centre for Fine Arts with an intimate solo recital of material culled from his collaborations with Brad Mehldau. Opening on elegant nylon string guitar, Metheny slowly built out of scalar shards made from Flamenco intervals a slowly thickening texture of rich seconds and sevenths. The tone was immediately rich: reverberant and smooth as is the guitarist's wont. The second piece, on open-tuned steel string, had more of a bluesy toughness in the language, with gestural echoes of Kenny Burrell throughout the skilfully-managed arc form. Metheny's extended tonal palette, and his skill with controlling varying textures of one, two, three and four voices, all shone through these early solo pieces.
The third piece, 'The Sound of the Water', saw Metheny bring out his famous Pikassa 42-string guitar. The instrument contains all manner of simulacra: mandolute at the top, koto at the bottom, straight guitar in centre, amongst other things. Playing one-handed bass with his left, and striking koto strings, body of guitar, and mandolute with his right, Metheny got a little lost in the technical spread available to him. Impressive, but a little vapid nonetheless. The introduction of a hollow bodied electric for the following entrée to the main course had Metheny making more with less: Wes Montgomery-esque passages alternated with rapid passagework and destabilised chordal vamps, all cheekily supported by automated hand-cymbals. These latter were very much harbingers of what was to come!
So, the orchestrion. Named for a nineteenth century hybrid instrument which similarly aimed for unilateral orchestral simulation, the orchestrion consists of about fifty separate sound-producing entities, which are operated via electromagnetic solenoids (these actuate either a pneumatic or hydraulic valve, which in turn strike or blow the vessel) programmed in different sequences according to trigger. Depending on selections made via foot-operated solenoids/DSPs, Metheny can himself trigger loops and/or unison accompaniments (which accords with his favoured style of orchestration). For the sake of pragmatism, these sorts of operations are restricted in concert, being extensively used only on the demonstrative improvisations Metheny performs. The array of instruments is dominated by tuned and untuned percussion, including vibes, disklavier, congas, bass and acoustic 'botguitars', cymbals, marimbas, and shakers, but also includes two sets of bottle-organs, which are, simply, sets of precisely tuned glass bottles with pneumatic tubing attached at their top at appropriate angles. The chromatic and resonant bottle-organs add a vital diversity to the tone colour of the array.
The orchestrion feels in practice like an electroacoustic hyper-sampler, seemingly ridiculous for its flouting of digital technology but mechanically and musically impressive nonetheless. The operations of its many algorithms come off without a hitch, with colour and weight precisely calibrated to fit with those of Metheny's swashbuckling lead. Swing does not, even, stand in abeyance: numerous passages of dextrous play stack up beside lyric moments of rest and convincing passages of build and decay, with machinic rust only in evidence on occasional transitions, in the sometimes heavy plod of bass and piano, and in the obvious lack of balance in ensemble-solo for orchestrion-Metheny.
The material itself is constructed along the lines of a loosely-integrated, smoothly flowing suite, and it is what one expects: extended tonality and Latinite percussive effects sifted through hints of bop and freebop modernism in the forms and metrics, all of it sweetened by regular diversions into an easy-on-the-ear lyricism which aims for elegy, but often falls a little short. Folk and Reichian-patterns enrich the flow, on occasion. As I have said, the orchestrion simulates organic performance extremely well, and Metheny's many excited extrapolations out of the set music, straining in excitement against the funky swung rhythms, the tight builds, and the colourful sound-arrays, feel comfortable and natural, as if he were leading his own group and not taking part in a phantom dance of mechanics.
But, still, why? The digitisation of musical process casts such an endeavour in the light of nostalgia, a charge buttressed by the comparative mildness of Metheny's muse itself. The achievement is (largely) mechanical in an age of cybernetic advance. Yet the gain that is had from the live, acoustic production of sound as against the electronic reproductions of a backing track are obvious. A strong element of indeterminacy also deepens the palette; jangling shakers do just that in mid-air, whilst the overtones of the marimbas and vibes are often left to accumulate before they are dampened for the next attack. Clearly an actual band of human beings would, in a sense, be more pliant and flexible, but in terms of conception and execution, the orchestrion must be deemed a (whimsical) success. And as a sheer construction, the orchestrion on stage (where it has to be stacked in a bank like a wall of amplifiers, with pianos, vibes, marimbas and bottle-organs just in front), looks amazing. The tricksy visual conceit enabled by the neat ploy of having little neon lights flash on each instrument as it sounds works wonderfully; you watch the dance of lights notate strange musical labours, and wonder at the mad thrill of it all.
The music has changed very little, despite the explosive experiments conducted for method, and perhaps this is the greatest disappointment of the whole project. Metheny has failed to push in to the same aesthetic hinterland as he has technical, producing a suite of music that could, sonically, have just as easily (and somewhat more supply) been made with his band. But it can't be ignored that for sheer joy in use and bewildering skill in execution, Metheny's orchestrion would take some beating. Following the performance of the Orchestrion album, Metheny spoke to the crowd a little, generously explaining the inspirations for the project (his grandfather's player piano), and demonstrating in two knotty and vertiginous improvisations how precisely he can layer and build textures from his guitar. After multiple rousing receptions, Metheny brought a long and wide-ranging set to a close with graceful, communicative, and supple performances of some of his popular tunes, including 'This is Not America' and 'Slip Away'. A humble and generous performer following his muse, which on this occasion felt more technical than aesthetic. Still, a fascinating show.
Photos: Metheny, Orchestrion
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