Pat Metheny’s Creative Guitar Genius Shines At Burlington’s Flynn Center (SHOW REVIEW)

The title of Pat Metheny’s latest album, Dream Box, is taken in part from jazz slang for a hollow-body guitar. But it’s the Missouri natives’ imaginative use of such instruments over the course of his career that imbues the instrument with its evocative capabilities, skills he demonstrated in altogether remarkable fashion over the course of his solo performance at the Flynn Center in Burlington, Vermont on September 25th.

Anyone who’s seen Metheny at his many different appearances in the Green Mountain State over the years, at this storied venue or otherwise, can vouch for the thought-provoking nature of his presence alone on the stage. Concerts with his various groups and other alliances (with Brad Mehldau for instance) have invariably featured such segments all of which proved even more tantalizing for the comparatively brief duration of those interval(s)

Yet the guitarist/composer/bandleader’s latest return to the Green Mountains was hardly a mere replay of such segments. Or recapitulation of the 2023 BMG album for that matter. Instead, in the first of his good-natured (and occasionally corny) verbal addresses to the audience, Metheny accurately described this show as a personal outline of his projects over time, a concept directly in line with the essential premise of the aforementioned LP.

Metheny was in no hurry as he strode out onto the MainStage and graciously received the hearty accolades of the crowd. Yet he wasted no time in immersing himself in the gentle sounds he coaxed from his nylon string guitar and it was nigh on impossible not to pay rapt attention to what the man was doing as he followed his self-described stream-of-consciousness.

Metheny seemed as enraptured as anyone else in the room, watching both of his hands in motion as his head bent over his instrument, the wild thatch of now-gray hair obscuring his face. And there were some points in the first half hour or so that he touched the strings so lightly, it was only through the optimum house sound it was possible to hear all those gentle notes of his quick take on Jobim’s “The Girl From Ipanema.”

It was likewise a stretch to miss Metheny’s evocation of those many past visits to Burlington of which he had previously spoken. “Phase Dances,” from the initial LP by the first Pat Metheny Group, was in constant rotation on UVM’s WRUV radio prior to that quartet’s initial appearance at Hunt’s that same spring of its release 1978, while the theme from the film “Alfie” came from the second of two previous solo guitar albums, One Quiet Night and What It’s All About.

Pat’s mention of those records oddly did not receive the same volume of recognition as his allusion to close friendship and creative partnership with late bassist Charlie Haden. And while that might explain why this storied venue was apparently not sold to capacity, especially given this artist’s history with the room and its city, more’s the pity for music lovers in general and jazzheads, but mostly the inveterate Metheniacs who usually populate his Vermont audiences.

For that particular demographic, missing out on this approximately two hours and fifteen minutes would have to constitute an egregious oversight. In a single set, this series of sketches plotting the evolution of  Metheny’s various efforts over the years came to a purposeful and quietly spectacular close, no doubt prompting that patron in the lobby to exclaim with such astonishment “I had no idea what to expect.”

Metheny transferred his early focus on both nylon and steel string guitars to a baritone instrument via two selections by the Beatles. But the pair of Sir Paul’s most exquisite melodies, “Here There And Everywhere” and “And I Love Her,” appeared only after homage to this great musician’s male offspring in the form of “Song For The Boys” (one of whom worked the merch table in the Flynn lobby).

Metheny also gave proper due to the forty-two-string Pikasso guitar he acknowledged using so many times in the past. By the same token, he refused to neglect the dissonance of his 1994 Geffen contractual fulfillment Zero Tolerance For Silence. Said juxtaposition was indicative of the careful pacing of the concert: if in the early going the mesmerizing nature of the Beyond The Missouri Sky medley threatened to become simply too much of a good thing, Metheny restored balance via the synth guitar that came out in fairly short order after the switch to a hollow body electric.

The caustic sounds from that instrument supplied extra distinction to the sweet tone of an unnamed original composition. But perhaps even further afield to some attendees–a smattering of whom began to depart at the one-hour mark and turned into a rush before either encore–was the insertion of looped sounds from various fretboards; as with his 2010 unveiling of his modernized Orchestrion on this same stage, he was then able to trigger and amplify those progressions through the massive electronic device.

It was at this point Metheny displayed not just his familiarity with technology, but a mastery of it comparable to his impeccable guitar technique. One by one, he unveiled a virtual tableau of guitars across the stage, doffing them of their dark draping in no little demonstration of pure drama (but not histrionics). Having launched a lush chord sequence on repeat from stage right, his playing on another electric instrument conjured up those bright and uplifting moments of suspense so common in his past work, especially with the various PMGs over the years.

Coming from such a veteran musician as Metheny, this presentation might’ve been little more than an exercise in nostalgia, albeit an indirect one. Except that the unfolding of all this action confounded anticipation/expectations of this stop on the current Dream Box tour and allowed his return to acoustic textures near the end to function as a soundtrack to contemplation of that very notion: he softly picked and strummed Jimmy Webb’s “Wichita Lineman” as a second (!) encore.

Upon exit from the theater, it was impossible to miss the bright, nearly full moon hanging in the sky above Burlington. The glowing orb seemed like nothing so much as a reminder of what it’s been like to follow Pat Metheny’s near-half-century career, for some of those in the house perhaps, hearkening as far back as his March 1977 appearance with Gary Burton’s group at the now defunct Memorial Auditorium.

As on this early autumn night in the Queen City, the man’s display(s) of creative genius not only provides plenty to savor but also delivers far more than just a mere modicum of delightful surprise.

Photo by Ross Mickel