Composer, arranger and performer Richard Niles took his 25-year association with guitar legend Pat Metheny as a starting point for a three-part BBC series, Pat Metheny―Bright Size Life. Airing in 2007, Niles interviewed Metheny on a wide range of topics, from the guitarist’s first realization that guitar would be his life to insights on melody and improvisation, with reflections on the unfolding of his career along the way. In this volume, Niles reassembles those interviews along with many others, sprinkled with comments from his closest collaborators—Gary Burton, Lyle Mays and Michael Brecker. Unlike typical presentations of interviews—edited and spliced for better flow in print, these interviews seem to be simply transcriptions, warts and all, coming across as one imagines Metheny responding to Niles’ provocative questions. Thus the master’s words have the intimacy of a conversation among colleagues rather than the polish of a journal article. Over the 152 pages, readers learn how all-consuming music became to a very young Pat Metheny, to the point that his parents tried to ban the guitar for a year in order to force Pat to give schoolwork some attention, and how ultimately everyone around him recognized that he needed the guitar as much as he needed air. Soon the obsession of a young teen blossomed into one of the most creative forces of modern music, as Pat first worked as sideman to Gary Burton, then struck out on his own, quite literally, determined to devote his career to presenting largely his own music under his own direction. The interviews and comments from fellow musicians paint a complex portrait of the artist, his vision, his creative process, his own oral history.  

Neither as complete as a biography or as self serving as a testimonial, The Pat Metheny Interviews offers a unique approach to the effort to get inside the head and heart of an artist who truly changed his medium. Added value—scores of black and white photos of Metheny performing as a youngster through current tours and discography.