Anthea Gerrie Sees Pat Metheny Kick Off The London Jazz Festival In The City’s Acoustically Brilliant Brutalist Concert Hall
Britain’s most famously Brutalist building and the world’s most lyrical jazz guitarist have more in common than you might think. When the Barbican Centre opened in London in 1982, Pat Metheny’s star was already in the ascendant and he was months away from winning the first of his 20 Grammys.
Given that the controversial edifice houses a concert hall with magnificent acoustics, it’s no surprise Pat Metheny has played the Barbican more than once in his star-studded career spanning nearly half a century, and proved a superb choice to kick off the 2024 London Jazz Festival with a weekend of concerts
The musician so accomplished he was teaching guitar at home near Kansas City by the time he was 19 is a master of jazz-rock-bossanova fusion who has been embraced over the course of his career by greats from Joni Mitchell to Keith Jarrett to David Bowie for the energy he brought to their collaborations. But he has finally ditched his signature Breton T-shirt and even his own band, devoting his 70th birthday tour to showing how many different sounds one man can produce with a guitar – actually more like a dozen, including a customised “Picasso” with 42 strings.
Then there is a glittering, Heath Robinson-style automated percussion backdrop – literally bells and whistles as well as drums and keys – unveiled half-way through the show by a guitarist who makes so much magic playing quietly on his own it’s a surprise when he invites in other instruments. The other surprise is a desire to indulge in playing covers by a musician who has spent most of his career showcasing his own compositions. Burt Bacharach,the Beatles and Brazil’s Antonio Carlos Jobim all lived again at the Barbican in Metheny’s renditions of Alfie, Here There and Everywhere and The Girl from Ipanema, with an even more soulful rendition of Jimmy Webb’s Wichita Lineman as a final encore.
Lucky those able to bag any remaining tickets for Pat Metheny’s second Barbican gig on November 16 or an even more intimate concert next day in Saffron Walden, Essex, before his departure for dates in Canada, home to the female luthier who creates his amazing instruments, and eventually back to the USA. But jazz lives on year in year out at the Barbican, where the EFG London Jazz Festival gigs in its second, closing weekend include east-west supergroup the Crosscurrents Trio, Sikelela presenting the evolution of South African jazz, and Take Me To the River, a celebration of the New Orleans sound which created the genre showcasing current stars of the Big Easy alongside the best of British horn players.
Other venues include the Southbank Centre, Cadogan Hall, ICA and the Jazz Cafe – but only the Barbican offers a chance to take in world-class art while visiting and, if time permits, a 90-minute guided tour of the bold transformation of city centre bomb site into high-level residential complex with an artificial lake and sculpture-dotted gardens edging the ruins of the original Roman London Wall. As lyrical a composition in its way as those emanating from the joyous strings of Pat Metheny.
Tell Me More About Seeing Pat Matheny Jazz In London And The Barbican:
Book Pat Matheny at efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk and visit the Barbican
