DVD Spotlight of the Week: 1998 Crossmen, ‘A Metheny Portrait’

The corps’ rendition, the second half which is heard in the accompanying video clip, made heavy use of the drumming style that had become known as the Crossmen “groove machine,” with a multitude of overlaying rhythms contributing to a unique, thick tapestry of driving rhythms. The middle tune was “Letter from Home,” from the 1989 album of the same name. The album is generally thought of as a direct continuation of “Still Life (Talking)” and was the first Metheny Group album to focus on exploiting the greater recording length available with the increasingly popular CD (compact disc) format. The poignant work evoked a tender memory of reading a letter sent over a long distance from family members back home. Although longtime collaborator Lyle Mays performed on the album, Metheny is said to have written the work himself. The corps’ version took lots of time to “breathe,” wrapped in the elongated melody to give both the corps members and audience a chance to catch their breath for what was to come. What followed was “First Circle,” co-composed with Lyle Mays for the 1984 album of same name. The compound meter of 22/8 is perhaps best known for its clapping rhythmic groupings of one or two eighth notes with single eighth note rests in between each grouping. You can better understand this repetitive motif if you turn the final element of each segment of the 3+2+3+2+2+3+3+2+2 pattern into eighth note rests. At five minutes 20 seconds in length, the closer—inspired by Bob Curnow’s big band treatment of the work—comprised just under half the Crossmen’s entire production. The pinkish-orange flags that appeared were by far the brightest colors yet seen, but still followed up on the somewhat muted palette started by the soft yellow-then-shades of purple flags of the opener and the light green spectral variety explored in the middle tune. There were a number of moments when the soft melody exploded in loud dynamic fireworks of brass and pulsating percussion, only to fall back to simmering under the boiling point. Shades of light lime greens appeared on curved flagpoles during one such section when the horns came back in, after the front ensemble percussion took over for several measures, enticing the audience to lean forward to hear the quieter segment. The curved poles emphasized the sudden changes of speed during the spinning, creating a most mesmerizing effect. The horns outlined the harmonic development Metheny had skillfully woven on the guitar during one of his solo sections, dividing the guitar arpeggios up across the middle voices and lower horns just as Bob Curnow had done in his treatment. After another crescendo out of solemnity, flags exploded to dark dots of blue on a silvery-blue background that seemed to play off the color of the percussion section’s drum shells, appearing to be fluorescent when spun even though they weren’t. Seriously, if you don’t own “Bob Curnow’s L.A. Big Band: The Music of Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays,” buy it. This remarkable album from 1995 will leave you amazed at how you’ll listen to the music of Metheny and Mays with an entirely new outlook.