Pat Metheny conducts a robotic jazz orchestra with his guitar

Posted on | January 27, 2010 | No Comments

Pat Metheny might be my favorite living guitarist. I’ve seen him fifteen times in concert since I wondered who the hell was playing those seemingly cheesy Weather Channel songs. I dug a little deeper, found out most of his tunes weren’t easy listening crap, and have been hooked ever since.

Yesterday morning I logged onto Spotify to find out that he had a new album called Orchestrion that I had NO CLUE about. I’ll listen to ANYTHING he puts out without a flinch. Shortly after, I checked out his site and I stumbled upon the video below to find out that this album was extremely unique for any genre of music…because he controlled all instruments on the album with his guitar.

I define jazz as pushing boundaries. Jazz can’t be static. Pat Metheny, who had made a name for himself by playing a guitar that was hooked up to a pedal that made is sound like a trumpet, has taken his love of technology even further allowing his guitar to play the role of maestro for a robotic band. AAAAND as an added bonus, he’s touring “solo” with the technology that he recorded the album with, so I’ll be at the Town Hall show for sure!!!