You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Solo Analysis "Cantaloupe Island" - Pat Metheny - #19

Episode Date: January 24, 2019

It's a special two-parter solo analysis this week as Peter and Adam check out a performance of "Cantaloupe Island." This episode, it's an analysis of Pat Metheny's solo. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to Herbie Hancock. That's right. Taring it up on this version of Canalope Island. And this is the you'll hear a podcast. Yeah. He's all up on the YouTube's.

So we're doing a part two. We've never really done this, but we spent so much time geeking out over Herbie's solo. We didn't even get to the great Pat Mathini's solo here on this live version of Canaloupe Island. This is Herbie Hancock on piano, Pat Mathini on guitar, Dave Holland on bass and Jack Dejanette on drums. Yes. And this was sent in by a listener Mick to do a track analysis. And it's just weird coming in with this part of Herbie's solo. Yeah, we're coming in hot today.

Coming in hot today. Coming at you. And so... I hope you've had your coffee. Here's Pat. Pat Metheny. All right off the bat. So if you listen to yesterday's episode, you know that Herbie used a lot of repeated note phrases.

Yes. Which he does a lot on this kind of 16-note group. and already Pat is kind of referenced that to start his solo. He did one little repeated thing. He did a little chromaticism there just a la Herbie's solo. Right.

That's a nice way to come in. He's not mimicking what Herbie did, but he's kind of nodding to it a little bit. A little dovetailing maybe? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, and I mean, look, the hardest thing I was thinking about this, and look, I never, you know,

until we got, until we're watching it now, I've never seen this before. Me neither. I saw the band, this band around this time, but, you know, the hardest thing after a great solo is like, what are you going to do? You know, just in terms of a live situation,

especially when you get that kind of audience response and the energy is there and everybody's firing someone. When it comes to you, you can't really say, well, I'm going to go even higher because that's not going to happen. But then again, you can't lower the intensity so much

and you can't ignore what they're doing. So what I think he does here, Pat Matheny is great in terms of referencing it, dovetailing it, you know, continuing. Because the way the rhythm section is playing it's like they're charging right ahead because that's the way Herbie's solo went

that's been the vibe ever since, you know when Herbie set the tone with this intro where we talked about yesterday that kind of set the vibe and plus like the tune everybody knows the tune

and it's a cyclical and there's only three chords and you know let's hear that transition one more time from Herbie to yeah I mean the way everybody's playing it's like they're in the middle

of the it's like one long solo is continued from yesterday Pat Mathini not afraid to throw some blues in there though too Yeah, he had that from the beginning of this. Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, I mean, he's known for being able, not being able to, having that part of his style to play these really long lines. Beautiful long lines.

Beautiful long lines. And I think that they're almost like a bunch of phrases together. To do that at the beginning of the solo, normally be like, wow, don't you want to wait. But because of the intensity coming out of Herbie Sol and Herbie did a lot of, he did some longer things later in the solo where they were kind of slowed down, almost like, you know, with that chromatics going. Yeah. But he didn't do like his quick. you know, 16th note and eighth note triplet phrases were super short phrases.

So like paths already kind of going a little bit of differentiation there that makes sense structurally because the groove and stuff, the intensity is there. There's not going to be a change with that. That's already been established. You got to do something. Herbie's solo ended up on such a high that you can't just break it all the way down. Right, right.

I mean, you're just going to, the air's going to come out of the room. So Pat knows that he's keeping it up. Yeah. And almost continuing on. And I think the one thing that I kind of noticed that he is doing to set up the architecture, was he's starting in the lower register. Like those are long lines and intense rhythmically and got the blue stuff.

But he's starting relatively low. So like that's a cool little architectural thing to do to still have some shape to a solo. Well, there goes up high, aren't? On cue. Yeah. But I mean, Dijanette's like feeling like it's the end of the night, you know? Do you ever get a chance to play with Jack Dijanette?

I play with him one time. That must be so much fun. He wasn't playing like this. But then again, I wasn't playing like this either. He's doing some similar kind of chromatic things. Yeah. Like that Herbie did techniques, but with his lines. With his line.

It's a little different, but he's using a lot. I think he's using even more chromaticism than Herbie. Yeah. And it's working. Yeah, yeah. And again, kind of links things up, makes it feel like his personality's coming out, but there's a continuum with the band the way everybody's playing. He's got decent.

phrasing doesn't he Pat Metheny and then apparently he has some chops so he can kind of back it up yeah it just got real up in here I just want to back that up because Pat did some outside chromatic stuff and

listen to what Herbie plays with him going right with him yeah he smiled to he's like oh yeah I love how like Jack Dijanette Jack Dijan plays like the animal from the Muppets like the intensity

but he looks like like a college professor like as he's playing actually. So relaxed. Everything looks like it's happening in slow motion but it sounds so fast. Exactly. So that whole section, that's such a path thing but it's such a, I mean, he has the ability to play all this stuff

and then just go to almost like a fulky, bluesy, kind of very simple line, very like just basic. But with the same rhythmic intensity that he just did all those 16th notes, all those eighth notes and triplets and stuff. And he's almost, like a melodic breakdown, but it's intense

because of how he places it within the solo. And another thing I'm noticing with this solo, and you don't think of Pat Mathini as like a blues player, bluesy player, whatever, roots, I mean, he's definitely a roots player, but, you know, in his way. Yeah. But like the way he uses the blues scale,

and it's the same way Herbie used it as a punctuation at the end of the choruses, right? I mean, that's the lesson. We talked about this several times on the podcast, but, you know, the blues scale, all the masters use it, in different ways, but almost all of them also use it as punctuation at the end of a chorus or at the beginning of a chorus or a way to break it up.

Pat's doing all this crazy modern, pentatonic outside language, chromatic stuff and phrasing that goes all over the place, and then he's landing with the blues because, you know, it hits hard. You know, and I just want to give a shout out to Pat, too, and just say that he's very lucky that we're doing a solo analysis and not a shirt analysis, because I'm looking at that I mean, look, we can all be judged for what we wore during that period, but... I just hope that people don't judge us on our scarf choices right now. Oh, yeah. Just scarfs.

Is that even a scarf? It's a scarfet. This is a scarfet. A necklet? A necklet. A scarfetto. Scarfetti. Yeah.

His shirt choice, I think this shirt is actually back in style. Yes. It's come all the way around. Which is good because I think he still has it. No, but look, I don't mean to pick on Pat. The whole band is questionable fashion. wise by today's standards by those i remember seeing them and i remember when i first saw

like herbie wearing those versace shirts i was like dang laying it down i think this is this is late 80s because herbie still has a dx7 and there's a roads but not a fender roads like a roads electric right right right digital that's what i'm gonna guess the architecture of that

the way he ended that solo and and you know comparing that to what herbie played earlier, it's really brilliant. It's almost like he put this whole composition and arrangement together. Yeah. And it's a different kind of ending. It was exactly what was called, like it was more of an obvious

and not a continuation thing. And just fits so well with how he played, but it fits so well. And this is all the great solos, too. It's not just about their solo. It's about the whole arrangement. You're making it easier for what's about to happen. You're making the solo that already happened sound even better based upon what you played. It's great stuff. Really, really great stuff. Thank you, Mick, for the suggestion. I had not

heard this before and I love it. I'm going to probably go even deeper on this this week and it's just so great. You know, if you have a suggestion for us, you can go to you'll hear it.com. You can leave us a voicemail. You can leave us a written suggestion. You know, send in your

tracks. We're doing a call for closing credits and if we like your track, we might use it at the end of an episode. We might steal it for our own nefarious purposes here. Yeah, and hit us up in the comments below if you enjoy this format. If you don't, we don't really care.

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Until next time, you'll hear it.