The box-office pull of guitarist Pat Metheny has inevitably made him a rare sighting in the kind of small rooms that mostly suit jazz best. The Missourian’s chemistry of improv virtuosity, songwriting skill and rock power elevated him to stardom four decades ago as one of contemporary jazz’s most popular instrumentalists – but as he enters senior citizenship, he keeps on proving that few jazz artists who enjoyed such early success have balanced parading their hits and exploring new ventures so creatively.
Last January’s announcement that Metheny would not only play four nights at Ronnie Scott’s, but be accompanied by the first acoustic piano trio he has worked with in almost a decade, was therefore hot news, not just in the jazz loop but among a much wider circle of music-lovers. The fact that the gifted local hero Gwilym Simcock would be his pianist was the icing on the cake. On the evidence of a vivid opening show that overran by half an hour – even though Metheny was going to have to do it all again for the night’s second performance – the star was as excited by the prospect as the packed house.
The rapport within this newly minted band was unmistakable. Like Metheny, Simcock is a brilliant jazz-melody improviser of boundless invention who similarly favours firmly signposted chord changes varied by shrewdly paced key shifts and growing pressure on the climax-insinuating gas pedal. Metheny was soon smiling and nodding as the pianist’s pin-sharp runs and ecstatic chord-punching crescendos took off. The poise of a first subtle solo by the Malaysian-born New Yorker Linda Oh, a diminutive double bassist with a big sound and improvising instincts of patient logic, then drew Metheny toward more inquiring exchanges with his partners, hugging the guitar’s middle register, and resolving phrases in soft blues tones. Famous themes, including the lyrical James and the hustling Phase Dance, were interspersed with private meditations, with Metheny, in romantic-ballad mood, alone on acoustic guitar.
After a fast, jazzy, piano-guitar unison theme, Metheny cut loose on his trademark horn-mimicking synth guitar and drummer Antonio Sanchez responded with rock grooves of ringing cymbal hits and fizzing snare tattoos. Sanchez then held the stage alone, spurring memories of his Birdman drum score in a thrilling solo of galloping deep-toned figures, whipping offbeats and clashing cymbal sounds – with Metheny eventually joining this melee, driving a limber guitar line through the storm until it subsided in echoing whispers and cymbal-edged squeals. When Metheny’s most hypnotic theme, Are You Going With Me?, followed up these abstractions with its pulsing bass hook and yearning melody, the crowd roared. If there was a missing element, it was Metheny’s fascination with the edgier jazz that has often brought a spikier, Ornette Coleman-influenced pungency to his music. But for the most part, this was a tour de force of a live show, refreshing one of the most-recycled repertoires in contemporary jazz in constantly diverting ways.
- At Ronnie Scott’s, London, until 2 July. Box office: 020-7439 0747.
