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Los Angeles Guitar Quartet's European Debut of Pat Metheny Commission Highlights Uppsala International Guitar Festival
Uppsala, Sweden
October 11-15, 2017
While much if not most of this year's Uppsala International Guitar Festival-once again held in the music-friendly Konsert & Kongress building-was devoted guitarists and music emanating from the worlds of classical, Brazilian, Tango and Flamenco, other musical strains were there to explore as well.
Frank Gambale
guitarb.1958
George Harrison
guitar1943 - 2001
Eric Clapton
guitar and vocalsb.1945
And then there was the appearance of the Grammy-winning Los Angeles Guitar Quartet playing the Big Hall on Saturday night. Formed in 1980, the group has become legendary for their appeal to audiences that love both classical guitar playing but also their regular forays into more contemporary or crossover styles. Three of the original founders are still with the group:
John Dearman
guitarWilliam Kanengiser
guitarScott Tennant
guitarMatthew Greif
guitarWhat made their concert in Uppsala extra special was their European debut of a piece written for the quartet by
Pat Metheny
guitarb.1954
Hermeto Pascoal
multi-instrumentalist1936 - 2025
Baden Powell
guitar, acoustic1937 - 2000
Opening the second half of the program, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet played music more inclined toward Road To The Sun with another three-movement work entitled Opals by Australian guitarist/composer Phillip Houghton (who died unexpectedly on October 1). Written for guitar quartet, the music's inspiration is the natural world, specifically Australia's opalescent national gemstone.
Richard Gilman-Opalsky
drumsb.1973
Metheny's signature sound (if there is one)—careening grace notes, melodic and harmonic gestures, attention to intervals and rhythmic transitions -was heard shining through the music. But this was a music that steered away from composer's long-form jazz world, tending toward a more or less classical approach. And while there was lots of strumming, it was clear that it was a strumming that sidestepped a more Flamenco-type of delivery. That said, one could hear strains of a Metheny open-sky, full-brush approach reminiscent of his New Chautauqua and As Falls Wichita music.
There were periods where the music was slow, very deliberate, made up of single lines for each player, often with the others playing in support. Going then from player to player, those single lines became gradually strummed lines, the guitarists moving back and forth between each other. Eventually a pulse in five emerged from a mostly pulse-less music even as the music remained somewhat meditative, followed by two repeated four-note phrases with a bass line, ascending and descending chords with pauses interspersed. Then, as if to give this music inspired by the "great outdoors" a jolt, the quartet engaged in rapid-fire fretboard slides, abruptly muted strumming, scampering, the atonal fret work fields away from anything melodic. This led into more active chording, a robust restatement of the theme only to to be followed by a return to delicacy, each player briefly entering in their own lines imbued by a very slight pulse.
In a number of spots, it appeared that Metheny had left room for some improvisation, the crossfires and transitions by turns both subtle and obvious, the ending of some of the movements clear, others not so. In the end, perhaps the most enjoyable elements of Road To The Sun had to do with how interactive the music was, where certain members laid out while others, or just one, played. One could sense how Metheny had written this music for this group, knowing the strengths of each member. The LAGQ has recorded Road To The Sun. A release date has not been set.
Not that all the LAGQ's music was straightforward, programmatic, let alone orderly. Throughout, there were comments made by members to the audience and a fair amount of playful banter between them. The audience's response at concert's end was heartwarming, leading to two encore pieces, including a kind of slapstick unpacking of Pachelbel's Canon in D was played in a variety of musical styles. A display of this group's stylistic reach in many directions, not to mention a prevailing sense of humor, left this Uppsala crowd calling for more.
Tags
Live Reviews
John Ephland
Sweden
Frank Gambale
Frano
Pattie Boyd
George Harrison
Eric Clapton
Los Angeles Guitar Quartet
John Dearman
William Kanengiser
Scott Tennant
Matthew Greif
Andrew York
pat metheny
J.S. Bach
Hermeto Pascoal
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Baden Powell
Phillip Houghton
Opals
Pachelbel
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