Jason brings to this movement a lively aggressiveness, but also a sort of elegance, and that’s really a testament to his mastery.” And I wanted to start with something sort of aggressive. “Jason Vieaux really understands the full range that you can play on a guitar-from the loudest to the softest. “I was on a family vacation and this idea kind of emerged, which ended up being the first movement of Road to the Sun.” Read on as Pat Metheny guides us through those two works, and dives deep into this album’s final track, Arvo Pärt’s “Für Alina,” which he performed on his 42-string guitar. “The LA Guitar Quartet had for many years been wanting me to write something for them,” says Metheny. The next work on this record, Road to the Sun-which was premiered in Denver in 2016-is texturally even more ambitious, its six movements running the gamut of what’s musically and technically possible on the guitar.

“I think when you write music for somebody, or you bring somebody into your band who is very talented, you have an obligation not just to utilize what they can do, but to take them someplace they had maybe never been before.” “I wanted to offer Jason something that would take advantage of his strengths, and also challenge him,” reveals Metheny. To me, he has the right mix of skills, but with a soul thing going on too.” Four Paths of Light is a technical tour de force, but a work, too, of thrilling rhythmic drive and intense beauty. “He kind of burst onto the scene as a significant new voice, and I was immediately impressed not just by his brilliant playing, but how he could play complicated things in a simple way. “I’d heard of Jason before I was even aware that he knew of me,” Metheny tells Apple Music. (Metheny does put in a brief appearance, however, on this album’s final track.) The album’s first work-four-movement solo guitar suite Four Paths of Light-was written by Metheny for fellow American guitarist Vieaux, who Metheny has admired for years. Here, he entrusts performances of two classical chamber works to guitarist friends and colleagues Jason Vieaux and the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet. But on Road to the Sun, he takes a step back. And his albums-whether performed solo or by the acclaimed Pat Metheny Group-are modern-day masterpieces. Guitar legend Pat Metheny is a master technician, an improviser of extraordinary, natural fluidity, and a composer with a gift for exquisite melodies.

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