I've been stoked for awhile about the Pat Metheny Trio coming to town. When I was sixteen, I bought my first jazz record: Bright Size Life. I remember seeing an interview at the time, where Pat was saying that he heard that a lot, 'Your album was my first jazz guitar album.' And that he didn't want it to be, that he would tell these same people to go get a Wes Montgomery album, an Ornette Coleman record. Get Miles, Bill Evans, Coltrane, etc., then come back and hear the modest offering of this kid from Lee's Summit.
And I don't believe it was false modesty. I made that voyage through the Blue Note catalog, got turned on to Keith Jarrett, Monk, Sonny Rollins, and I can understand why Pat didn't think he belonged there. Especially when he wasn't old enough to legally drink and had one reverb-soaked album out on ECM.
But of course, he belongs. I studied in high school under the great John Elliott, who had been Pat's first theory teacher. John was a stern teacher, with an infallible sense of what I hadn't studied thoroughly enough each week (I doubt I ever studied anything as thoroughly as John expected, so whatever he focused in on was bound to feel like the week's achilles).
John's students included not only Pat, but virtually every heavy on the Kansas City scene who came of age between the early 1970s and the mid 1980s. Every once in awhile, you'd meet someone who hadn't learned at his feet, but I can't think of who they were. I remember talking to Steve Cardenas about his experience with John, and Steve confessed that he hadn't been a 'very good student.' Steve was one of the people John invoked when chiding my undisciplined ass, so I don't know that Steve was such a slouch. I'm sure he felt like he was disappointing John each week, but John seemed to recall him as a much more apt pupil than I. Which might explain why I'm listening to Ben Allison's new CD, with Steve Cardenas on guitar, instead of him listening to me. See also, why Steve Cardenas didn't turn on the TV one night and exclaim, 'That's that Lobster dude!'
But if John held Steve Cardenas, Bobby Watson, Danny Embrey (who he described as 'gotta be one of the greatest guitarists on earth,' and that's not a paraphrase, but a direct quote etched in my brain), and others as lights to guide my way, he had a special reverence for Pat Metheny.
The reverence was summed up in a word I don't think he ever uttered about anyone else: 'genius.'
He told me about how Pat would come to the Playboy Club where John had a six night gig back when jazz still knew what commercial viability looked like. Pat was still in high school, and he'd show up to sit in, knowing none of the tunes.
As John described it, Pat would listen through the head, then take the first solo, navigating the changes as if he'd written the tune, and he'd take the lead on the head going out. And at that point, according to John, he knew the tune. Could make it sit up and do tricks.
I've known Pat's older brother, Mike, for well over a decade, the self-described 'LaToya Jackson of Jazz,' and nothing I've heard from him casts any doubts on John's account of Pat Metheny as a freakishly gifted musician.
But of course, that's all bullshit if you don't love the music. And I do. Bright Size Life still gets heavy rotation in my listening for periods of weeks. Despite the 900 other CDs, many of them the aforementioned classics Pat recommended, it still connects to my tissue.
Of course Pat's discography has grown, but almost all my favorite stuff of his is the trio stuff. Besides the debut album, you have Question and Answer, Rejoicing, Trio 99->00... Metheny Mehldau even fits the model, being the same trio basis but with Brad on piano as an addition. The 'world music' stuff that flies the 'Metheny Group' flag doesn't do much for me. But the jazz stuff, the 'real' stuff that's mostly trio work, that's what puts Pat squarely on a level with Art Blakey and Charlie Parker.
But, as Arlo Guthrie would say, that's not what I came to talk about. No, I didn't come to talk about the draft, and you've listened to too much Alice's Restaurant if you thought that was it.
I did a favor for a friend. I'd have done it anyway, but I figured I'd see if he had the juice to get me into this Metheny Trio gig coming up. I didn't hear back, so I figured I was on my own. Other times I've asked this friend for comp tickets, sometimes it's 'All you had to do is ask,' and sometimes it's 'They don't see any reason to give a ticket away.'
Then I got an email from another friend that the trio gig hadn't sold out but was 'almost' sold out. And I got nervous and impulsive and bought a ticket. First concert ticket I've bought since Ani DiFranco, which was before I lost (read was unjustly screwed out of) the gig that numbered among its virtues a virtually guaranteed stream of overtime to overcome impulse purchases. I got my credit card out and bought the ticket.
Then my free ticket came through.
At first, I thought, 'Great, I'll grab a date.'
But what date? When I was in high school, I didn't get gas in my car without a date. It's not that I was such a prize, I just didn't do shit without company, preferably a chick I found sexually attractive.
As my marriage disintegrated, it was hard to not think back on those days, days when showing up to a cast party alone drew shock and astonishment from my peers. But back then, what passed for a 'job' was defined by at least 700 girls who faced the choice of me versus an evening with the parents.
Those opportunities, they don't wait for you to go back to high school. Or maybe they would be if you were a creep who would still ask out high schoolers in his middle age. I wouldn't know, because while I have an obvious 'thing' for younger women, I don't consider high schoolers to be 'women.'
So after I asked out my potential 'date' for the show, I wondered what to do. There was a chick I was interested in a long time ago, who is technically single as far as I know, and who digs jazz. But she's going to be out of town on 3/7.
As is, apparently, another chick I know, a twenty-something I've been told is 'too young' for me. My position is that I might be too old for her, that's her call, but she's not too young for me. Also out of town that day.
Is out of town the new 'washing my hair?' Probably.
So I ask my would-be fiance: I have a standing offer that if she ever wants to ruin her life, I'll marry her. Her boyfriend, fortunately for me, has a sense of humor.
I asked her not to be my date but to be my wingman. This was the same designation I used a couple chicks back for a chick who has made it clear that middle-aged men are not her thing. But even my second wingman his going to be in Houston when the show goes down.
In any case, I finally realized my brother would be the logical person to use the second ticket. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner (okay, i do know, but it's dumb).
After I found out he could go, I couldn't find the ticket. This is where that whole chaos thing comes in, if you're still with me.
I couldn't find the second ticket. Tore my car up looking for it. Found shit I can't imagine why I'd keep, but no Pat Metheny ticket.
Finally, I look in the envelope the paid-for ticket came in and sure enough, I put the comp ticket in the same envelope so I wouldn't lose track of it.
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