I ranked Pat Metheny’s albums as one of my final pre-vaccination pandemic projects ten months ago. Time-consuming and intensely rewarding, the process enhanced my appreciation of the iconic musician’s career and has informed everything I’ve listened to since.
Metheny added two albums to his voluminous discography in 2021. The vital live recording Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV) documents a collaboration with the young innovator James Francies. The elegant Road to the Sun dovetails with my burgeoning interest in classical music.
I’d never given the crowd-pleasing guitarist John Pizzarelli much consideration. A quarantine-inspired solo guitar set of Metheny covers released in April changed my opinion. The insightful Better Days Ahead is among the year’s most pleasant surprises.
Viewers of the new Listening to Kenny G documentary were reminded of Metheny’s disarming candor. In a 2021 interview with In Kansas City magazine, he acknowledged an unpalatable truth about the limited scope of Kansas City’s jazz audience.
Asked why he hasn’t performed in Kansas City in nine years, the Lee’s Summit native said “Kansas City’s a really great sports town… the kind of, let’s say, intense listening that is found all over Europe, New York, LA, those kinds of places, for this kind of music has always been elusive for Kansas City musicians.”
The challenge is documented in Carolyn Glenn Brewer’s new book Beneath Missouri Skies. The illuminating account of Metheny’s teen years maintains that the current scarcity of support for jazz in the Kansas City area also bedeviled musicians in the 1960s and 1970s.
That’s why I timed a trip to Detroit to catch a date on Metheny’s tour with Francies and drummer Joe Dyson. There may not be 1,000 people in Kansas City willing to pay $50 to hear Metheny, but I purchased a $75 ticket to join 1,500 appreciative fans at a concert hall on Woodward Avenue.
A rare combination of critical acclaim and commercial success makes Metheny a jazz unicorn. And his particularly auspicious 2021 makes him There Stands the Glass’ Person of the Year. Bad Bunny was the recipient of this site’s 2020 Person of the Year designation.