Pat Metheny Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV) 2LP

JazzTimes' The Top 40 Jazz Albums of 2021 - Rated 9/40!

Side-Eye - NYC is an exciting, vibrant and energized new platform for Pat Metheny, showcased in a recording that features 30 minutes of intricate new music set alongside a few unexpected and creative re-workings of Metheny classics re-imagined.

Pat explains, "I wanted to create an ongoing platform to host a rotating cast of the newer generations of musicians who have particularly caught my interest along the way. From my earliest days in Kansas City onward, I was the beneficiary of so many older musicians hiring me, which gave me a chance to develop through the prism of their experiences and the particular demands of what their music implied."

Metheny has given this band concept the name Side-Eye and hopes that it might become a rotating group of musicians who could come and go in different combinations. So far, there have been four iterations, hence the V.1-IV sub-heading on the record.

Whether searingly electric, powerfully intense or deeply contemplative, highly composed or totally improvised, or even with some new-fangled contraption of his own design, there is always that unmistakable Metheny sensibility at work that has stood at the forefront of jazz for what is now approaching five decades. The Side-Eye series is the latest chapter in his continually unfolding story.

Joined by a pair of rising-star players, pianist/keyboardist James Francies and drummer Marcus Gilmore, the master guitarist turns in a fresh-sounding set drawn from the trio's pre-pandemic performances in New York City. It's a heady, often surprising mix, ranging from spacey opener 'It Starts When We Disappear' and synth guitar-led closer 'Zenith Blue' to a romp through his classic 'Bright Size Life' and a bluesy jam on Ornette Coleman's 'Turnaround.'

Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV) offers an astonishing portrait of the many places Metheny has been, and intimates where he may yet go. It's an album that virtually all of his fans can celebrate. It may also lead to another generation discovering him.