Pat Metheny: Dream Box

Guitarist and composer Pat Metheny was born on August 12, 1954 in Kansas City into a musical family. Metheny began playing trumpet at the age of 8 and switched to guitar at the age of 12. By age 15, he was working regularly with Kansas City's top jazz musicians, gaining valuable experience on the podium at an unusually young age. He has won 20 Grammy Awards in 12 different categories, including Best Rock Instrumental, Best Contemporary Jazz Recording, Best Jazz Instrumental Solo, Best Instrumental Composition. The Pat Metheny Group won seven consecutive Grammys for seven consecutive albums. Metheny has spent most of his life on tour, playing an average of 120 to 240 concerts per year since 1974. Pat Metheny: "Dream Box is an unusual recording for me. It's a compilation of pieces I recorded over several years. During a tour last year (2022), I discovered a forgotten folder on my hard drive. I often make quick recordings of things: a new tune, a new (or old) guitar, a standard tune, or just to try something out. I have a folder where I keep these recordings, honestly, never to listen to them again. The only time I listen to my own material is when I'm traveling. I often say that I live off the output and have little or no time for input. That changes on tour, where there suddenly seems to be more free hours in the day, albeit on a bus or in a hotel room far away. Occasionally, these moments provide an opportunity to rummage through files to see if there's anything interesting there. Last year was a particularly travel-filled year for me, with about 160 performances worldwide. During all this travel, I kept returning to this discovered folder. During these listening sessions, I was surprised to find that this program emerged as a coherent whole. I found that I had inadvertently arrived at a destination I had not planned, and I am pleased to share with you what I found there. These nine pieces were my favorites and have come together to form something unique to me. I've never played anything more than once. They are really moments in time, and in fact I have almost no memory of recording most of them. They just kind of popped up. Music exists in an elusive state for me, and often it's best when discovered independent of any particular intention. I hope people find their own dreams in this music."