吉他手派特‧麥席尼就美國樂壇而言，就像是音樂的開拓者，從空心吉他、電吉他到獨立開發設計的32弦吉他。他每一次的嘗試，對樂迷而言都如同是嘗鮮的創意；尤其是他驚奇不斷的表現手法，更讓聽眾期待他的新錄音與演出。2005年他所獻上的第一個驚喜就是這張「The Way Up」專輯。這次派特以樂團的團隊表現為主旨，以樂團為完整個體的前提下，創作出超過68分鐘的完美演出。
Amazon.comFor 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.
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.
