Nonesuch
2005
The Way Up
About This Album
The Way Up is the Pat Metheny Group's debut offering for Nonesuch Records. Comprised of a single, sprawling, 68-minute composition by Metheny and Lyle Mays -- divided into four sections on CD -- it is an unprecedented new direction for the band. The lineup is the same as on the live Speak of Now from 2003 -- Metheny and Mays on keyboards, bassist Steve Rodby, drummer Antonio Sanchéz, and trumpeter/vocalist Cuong Vu. New to the roster is Swiss/American harmonicat Gregoire Maret. While the sound here is instantly recognizable as PMG, it is dazzling and labyrinthine in shape, sound, and texture. Painstakingly composed, The Way Up also offers large open sections for solo improvisation and group interplay. The work's theme is stated in part one, unfolding gradually as skeletal layered guitars, samples, and other gentle electronics ease the frame into view, Sanchéz's drumming creating an insistent pulse. Mays' piano and Metheny's guitar engage in contrapuntal arpeggios and Vu enters haltingly with the actual line before the ensemble engages it as a whole. Brief melodic interludes usher in the longish second section seamlessly, where lyric fragments become full-blown statements, as the band's trademark restrained dynamic slips in unobtrusively before erupting into sheer euphoria with layered, crunchy, and fat six-strings, lilting harmonicas, and trumpets in tandem, all buoyed by Mays and Rodby, who underscore Sanchéz's skittering cymbal dance.
Track List (try tracks 1,3 and 4)

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