Pat Metheny

Pat Metheny was born in Lee's Summit, Missouri on August 12, 1954 into a musical family. Starting on trumpet at the age of 8, Metheny switched to guitar at age 12. By the age of 15, he was working regularly with the best jazz musicians in Kansas City, receiving valuable on-the-bandstand experience at an unusually young age. Metheny first burst onto the international jazz scene in 1974. Over the course of his three-year stint with vibraphone great Gary Burton, the young Missouri native already displayed his soon-to-become trademarked playing style, which blended the loose and flexible articulation customarily reserved for horn players with an advanced rhythmic and harmonic sensibility - a way of playing and improvising that was modern in conception but grounded deeply in the jazz tradition of melody, swing, and the blues. With the release of his first album, Bright Size Life (1975), he reinvented the traditional “jazz guitar” sound for a new generation of players. Throughout his career, Pat Metheny has continued to re-define the genre by utilizing new technology and constantly working to evolve the improvisational and sonic potential of his instrument.
Over the years, he has performed with diverse artists like Steve Reich, Ornette Coleman, Herbie Hancock, Jim Hall, Milton Nascimento, Joni Mitchell and David Bowie, to name just a few.
He is the younger brother of trumpet and flugelhorn player Mike Metheny.
Winner of twenty Grammy Awards:
- Best Jazz Fusion Performance, Vocal Or Instrumental for Offramp
- Best Jazz Fusion Performance, Vocal Or Instrumental for Travels
- Best Jazz Fusion Performance, Vocal Or Instrumental for First Circle
- Best Jazz Fusion Performance, Vocal Or Instrumental for Still Life (Talking)
- Best Jazz Fusion Performance for Letter From Home
- Best Instrumental Composition for Change Of Heart on Question And Answer
- Best Contemporary Jazz Performance (Instrumental) for Secret Story
- Best Contemporary Jazz Performance (Instrumental) for The Road To You (Recorded Live In Europe)
- Best Contemporary Jazz Performance for We Live Here
- Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Individual Or Group for Beyond The Missouri Sky (Short Stories)
- Best Contemporary Jazz Performance for Imaginary Day
- Best Rock Instrumental Performance for The Roots Of Coincidence on Imaginary Day
- Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Individual Or Group for Like Minds
- Best Jazz Instrumental Solo for (Go) Get It on Trio 99→00
- Best Contemporary Jazz Album for Speaking Of Now
- Best New Age Album for One Quiet Night
- Best Contemporary Jazz Album for The Way Up
- Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group for Pilgrimage
- New Age Album for What's It All About
- Best Jazz Instrumental Album for Unity Band