Hee. I just saw Chaka Khan perform on Ellen. Makes the thread title all the more amusing. Apparently she has a new line of chocolates called "Chakalates."

The deejay was in my brain: "Whatever my other thoughts about Pat Metheny are, all is forgiven for his work on this song and album (A Turtle's Dream)." Exactly.

Pat also did an album of noise-skronk after encouragement from Thurston Moore, and a bunch of Ornette. He's worked with Terry Riley too, so he's not your average fusion jazz noodler by any means.

Anyone else have commens on the new Bad Plus? I'm enjoying it. They cover "Velouria" and "Iron Man" (!)

Pat also did an album of noise-skronk after encouragement from Thurston Moore, and a bunch of Ornette.

Song X? I have it. It has its moments, but it's never really grabbed me. Haven't listened to it that much, though. Metheny's no Kenny G; he's a serious player. And I have no problem with mellow stuff. His duet album with Charlie Haden, Beyond the Missouri Sky, couldn't be any mellower, but I enjoy it, especially "Spiritual," written by Charlie's son Josh. That said, Metheny, like George Benson & Wes Montgomery before him, made a bunch of very successful records by catering, if not to the mainstream exactly, to the same audience as Kenny G & Grover Washington, Jr, the "Light jazz" format. <shudder> Again, that's not the same as mellow jazz, or jazz with strings, or even light jazz without the quotation marks. And I'm glad he's making a nice living with it, but he's one of those guys that makes you sad that he mails it in so often. Who cares if KG mails it in because what difference would it make? But Metheny really has it, even if it's easy to forget, and then you hear something like A Turtle's Dream (he's fabulous on "Throw It Away"), and it's like... man, why's he spend his time on that other crap?

True enough, but Pat gets my respect for going back and doing projects like Song X after he'd made his name futzing about with dreary fusion.

"G.G. Allen wouldn't take a shit in there."

Bwahahahaha!!!

But it was Allin.

t /pedant

I saw Methany live with...I think Jack DeJohnette and Charlie Haden? The Paradise (in Boston) in the late 80s or early 90s. Anyway, it was a much more trad trio line up and they kicked ASS!

As for his fusion stuff, I have a weakness for fusion, so I adore AS FALLS WICHITA....

Metheny's no Kenny G; he's a serious player.

Metheny's comments on Kenny G.

ETA: If that link doesn't work, try this.

Heh. First a very fair assessment of Kenny G's actual music merits or defaults, a thoughtful outreach to be inclusive, and then he gets to Kenny G. overdubbing himself on a classic Louis Armstrong track. Go Pat!

but when kenny g decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing all over one of the great louis’s tracks (even one of his lesser ones), he did something that i would not have imagined possible. he, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, shit all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years developing their own music inspired by the standards of grace that louis armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician. by disrespecting louis, his legacy and by default, everyone who has ever tried to do something positive with improvised music and what it can be, kenny g has created a new low point in modern culture - something that we all should be totally embarrassed about - and afraid of. we ignore this, “let it slide”, at our own peril.

G.G. Allin wouldn't take a shit in there.

But Dino would walk around naked. Fortunately it was Merle with whom my old housemate had a brief fling. The Murder Junkies were surprisingly polite. Not to ruin their rep or anything.

DeJohnette & Haden are the Song X rhythm section. Metheny & Haden are very close. The former was best man at Haden's last wedding.