Pat Metheny

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Image courtesy of Guitar BCN

Pat Metheny was born in Kansas City in 1954 into a family passionate about music. He started playing the trumpet at the age of eight and switched to guitar at the age of 12. At 15 he already worked regularly with the best jazz musicians in Kansas City, receiving valuable experience on stage at an unusually young age. Metheny burst onto the international jazz scene in 1974 and throughout his three years of work alongside the great vibraphone musician Gary Burton, Metheny began to develop what would become his label: a style in which he mixes a wide and flexible movement of the joints, usually reserved for those who play the trumpet, with an advanced rhythmic and harmonic sensitivity. A way of playing and improvising that was modern in its conception, but deeply rooted in the jazz tradition of melody, swing and blues.

With the release of his first album Bright Size Life (1975) he reinvented the traditional sound of "jazz guitar" for a whole new generation of performers. Throughout his career, Pat Metheny has continued to redefine the genre by using new technologies and constantly working to evolve the improvisation and sound potential of his instrument. Metheny's versatility is almost unparalleled.

Over the years he has played with artists as diverse as Steve Reich of Ornette Coleman, Herbie Hancock, Jim Hall, Milton Nascimento and David Bowie. Metheny, who has been writing music with keyboardist Lyle Mays for 20 years in an association that has been compared by critics and listeners to that of Lennon and McCartney and Ellington and Strayhorn, has a body of work that includes compositions for solo guitar, small ensembles, electric and acoustic instruments, large orchestras, and ballet pieces, in settings ranging from modern jazz to classical rock.

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