After the show, I happened to see Lyle at the bar sitting alone so I went over and introduced myself. He immediately invited me to sit down and talk. He was one of the nicest and most engaging individuals I had ever met and we had a pleasant and wide-ranging conversation about music.
What impressed me about Lyle was that he was completely approachable, open and so down to earth even though he was wildly successful and dare I say, a musical star, especially if you're a fan of jazz and the Pat Metheny Group. Our paths would cross again in when I created the first official website for the Pat Metheny Group.
During this time, my friendship with Lyle grew. This interaction led to an ongoing and spirited email chain that continued up until his untimely death. Joseph Vella JV : It's funny you mentioned The Way Up because the past two weeks I started listening to the entire work again after not hearing it for many years.
There are so many details in that recording. I hear something new each time I listen. I have to ask you if that was a sort of grand finale of the Pat Metheny Group? The market was dead to us. Record stores were going out of business and even the jazz radio stations weren't allowed to play even our shortest cuts. Pat and I had no reason to take the "market" into account so we went old school. Not old school, as in traditional jazz, but much older school as in Classical Symphony.
Well, that's where I went. I shouldn't speak for Pat, although he gave me no push-back. I think The Way Up is much more easily analyzed in classical terms than modern terms. The obvious media problem here is where to find a modern music critic that is conversant in classical symphonic harmonic or motivic devices?
