Track Listing

1. Opening
2. Part 1
3. Part 2
4. Part 3

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #35055 in Music
• Released on: 2005-01-25
• Number of discs: 1

Album Description
The Way Up represents, in the words of guitarist Pat Metheny himself, "our most ambitious undertaking ever as a group"-a single, brilliant 68-minute piece composed by Metheny and his collaborator of 28 years, Lyle Mays. Metheny has likened the creation of The Way Up to making a film, and in some respects, the album feels like a vividly rendered journey, its moods shifting like scenes glimpsed from a fast-moving vehicle.

Amazon.com
For nearly 30 years, guitarist Pat Metheny and his longtime musical cohort, pianist/keyboardist Lyle Mays, have covered an incredible amount of diverse material. On their debut recording for this label, they and their international group--bassist Steve Rodby, Mexican drummer Antonio Sanchez, Vietnamese trumpeter Coung Vu, and the Swiss-born harmonica virtuoso Gregoire Maret--distill that diversity into a continuous 68-minute opus. The challenge here lies in sustaining the melodic narrative thread while keeping the sound of surprise. Thanks to Mays's evocative pianisms and Metheny's array of acoustic, electric, and synthesized guitars, the group pulls it off. For Metheny fans this disc contains elements of his most acclaimed recordings, from the straight-ahead swing of Question and Answer and the folk-fusion of Offramp, to the Afro-Latin tinges of We Live Here, the atonally adventurous Zero Tolerance for Silence, and the Asian impressionism of Secret Story. --Eugene Holley, Jr.

Customer Reviews

one of the greatest sessions ever
PMG has made many great recordings, while most of us cannot even boast one. The Way Up, however, among those many, may be tops, imo, near the top. Brilliant in conception, shimmering in execution. Simply, the most creative, yet listenable, genre-bending ensemble playing today.

This is already a PMG classic album!
Upon listening to this album, I instantly fell in love with it. A wonderfully composed and arranged work by Pat Metheny Group, along with some other excellent musicians. It does have a slight reminiscence of Offramp, but like all Pat Metheny Group/Pat Metheny albums, each is unique and superb, and I've never heard an album I didn't like immensely. Some favorites are PMH (the white album), American Garage, Watercolors, Offramp, Bright Size Life, Secret Story, New Chautauqua, etc. PMG is still my favorite jazz trio, after seeing them for the first time at the Paolo Soleri Amphitheater in Santa Fe, New Mexico back in the summer of '81, and thanks Marghreta C. and Oona B. for taking me to the PMG concert for my birthday. I've been "hooked" on the PMG ever since.

THE WAY UP
THE WAY UP!! THE CD WAS DELIVERED IN A VERY TIMELY MANNER AND IS IN EXCELLENT CONDITION. LOVE THE MUSIC TOO!! :-) THANKS