Pat Metheny Expands His Sound With Ambitious Studio Album

Pat Metheny has released Side-Eye III+, marking his first full-band studio album in five years and the inaugural release on his label imprint, Uniquity Music. The record represents a deliberate shift from the introspective solo work of Dream Box (2023) and MoonDial (2024), embracing a larger sonic palette with orchestral arrangements, vocal performances, and expanded instrumentation.

The 71-year-old jazz guitarist describes his approach to record-making in two distinct categories. "I kind of joke that there are two kinds of records that I make: 'documentary' type records—a few folks in a studio, play the tune a few times, pick the best one and move on—and then what I kind of jokingly call the 'Stephen Spielberg IMAX' type records, meaning they are records where the studio itself plays a role as an instrument in things beyond just the basics," Metheny explains. "And then there are a bunch of records that kind of fall in the middle as hybrids of those two. This would be one like that."

The album opens with "In On It," a propulsive track anchored by drummer Joe Dyson's driving rhythm and featuring the twitchy central riff and rapid harmonic shifts characteristic of Metheny's work with the Pat Metheny Group during the 1980s. Yet even these more streamlined compositions expand beyond their initial conception. Tracks transform mid-course through sudden shifts in rhythm, dynamic beat drops, and layered harmonics that push the material into unexpected directions.

Songs like "Don't Look Down" and "Risk and Reward" showcase the expanded arrangements Metheny pursued during the recording process. Vocalist Mark Kibble of Take 6 contributes splashy choral vocals, while harp glissandos and auxiliary percussion create panoramic soundscapes. "Urban and Western" begins as a front-porch blues before erupting into full gospel intensity—arguably the most significant departure in Metheny's recent catalog.

Metheny wrote this material initially for a core trio featuring keyboardist Chris Fishman, drummer Joe Dyson, and himself. But during the compositional and recording phases, the arrangements demanded expansion. "The original idea of Side-Eye … was sort of a '21st century organ trio,' meaning left-hand bass in the keyboard department, and [Side-Eye keyboardist] Chris Fishman is one of the best guys I have ever heard at doing that. But pretty early on, I realized that this music would at least benefit from a bass player, and then I started hearing harp stuff, then singers, then percussion, and realized this record was going to be the core band of Chris, Joe, and I—plus," he says.

The sonic vocabulary here echoes back to Metheny's earlier work. Yearning guitar-synth lines floating across keyboard textures recall the Pat Metheny Group's heyday, while acoustic-focused numbers like "Our Old Street" and closer "So Far, So Good" carry the elliptical melancholy that defined "Last Train Home" from 1987's Still Life (Talking). Additional musicians including vocalist and percussionist Leonard Patton bring depth to these arrangements.

Some of the reflective quality permeating Side-Eye III+ stems from Metheny's consciousness of time and loss. At 71, he's watched many collaborators and friends pass away—including drummer Jack DeJohnette, who was his neighbor for over 40 years; bassist Charlie Haden; saxophonist Mike Brecker; and collaborators including Ornette Coleman, Dewey Redman, and Billy Higgins. "I look at my records, and a growing number of folks who are on them are no longer on the planet," Metheny reflects. "Many of these incredible musicians who I had fantastic musical relationships with also became lifelong close friends. I feel so lucky about that. In the end, for me the musical aspect of knowing those folks was almost secondary to just knowing them."

Metheny attributes some of the album's cohesion to younger musicians absorbing his musical vocabulary over decades of recordings and live performances. "There is an unexpected side effect of sticking around for lots of years in that younger musicians have absorbed my records and band conception and the tunes in pretty complete ways, to the point that I hardly have to make suggestions to folks on any instrument as to the way a tune might be treated. From listening a lot to the stuff, they just sort of know the vocabulary of it now, even if it is just by osmosis," he says.

The guitarist remains creatively restless. He's mounting an international tour through September with the Side-Eye lineup. Beyond that, five additional records exist in completed, in-progress, or development stages. His Uniquity Music label also plans to reissue previously out-of-print albums and titles that never received vinyl releases, potentially bringing back '90s works like Question and Answer and Secret Story.

When asked about current musical developments, Metheny weighed in on the buzzy indie band Geese. He watched their Saturday Night Live performance and had already sampled their work. While their first number, "Au Pays du Cocaine," struck him as serviceable though somewhat ironic, the second track "Trinidad" earned his genuine appreciation. "That was really the kind of thing I dig," he said.

Metheny views his career achievements not as endpoints but as obligations fulfilled. "I don't think anyone gets lasting credit for moving the vocabulary forward—because actually, that is what we are supposed to all be doing. It is a basic part of our job description," he says. Deep into his five-decade career, the jazz virtuoso continues treating that job description seriously.