The Way Up Pat

Pat Metheny: "From the beginning, this band has been on a mission. Throughout the group's history, there has been a sense of potential and an abundance of ideas that have been thrilling to explore. The Way Up is a long form piece that describes in detail many of the most pressing issues in our musical lives. The original recording (2004) was a milestone for us, but the tour that followed allowed us the opportunity to discover the piece in front of audiences around the world over the course of a 6 month tour. This film, shot during the Asian leg of that tour in Seoul, Korea, is an accurate and special documentation of the group at its best, performing The Way Up - Live."

The Way Up is the Pat Metheny Group's debut offering for Nonesuch Records. Comprised of a single, sprawling, 68-minute composition by Metheny and Lyle Mays divided into four sections on CD it is an unprecedented new direction for the band. The lineup is the same as on the live Speak of Now from 2003 Metheny and Mays on keyboards, bassist Steve Rodby, drummer Antonio Sanchéz, and trumpeter/vocalist Cuong Vu. New to the roster is Swiss/American harmonicat Gregoire Maret.

Excellent addition to any jazz music collection
Pat Metheny is one of the world's best-selling jazz musicians. He must be the one jazz guitarist whose albums are likely to appeal to lovers of symphonic prog - particularly his epics IMAGINARY DAY and THE WAY UP.

When guitarist Pat Metheny released Orchestrion (Nonesuch) in 2010, it almost immediately became one of his most controversial recordings since Zero Tolerance for Silence (Warner Bros., 1992). Why, in a jazz world, where interaction with other musicians is so fundamental to its spirit, to its raison d'être, would one of the most important guitarists of his generation not only release an album that replaced live musicians with a complex, pneumatic and solenoid-driven beast of an instrument called an Orchestrion, but actually embark on a massive world tour to promote it?