UMS Concert Program, October 10, 2018 - An Evening with Pat Metheny

 An Evening with Pat Metheny
Pat Metheny / Guitar with
Antonio Sánchez / Drums Linda May Han Oh / Bass Gwilym Simcock / Piano
Wednesday Evening, October 10, 2018 at 7:30 Hill Auditorium
Ann Arbor
Fifth Performance of the 140th Annual Season 25th Annual Jazz Series
This evening’s performance is supported by Tom and Debby McMullen.
Funded in part by the JazzNet Endowment Fund.
Media partnership provided by WEMU 89.1 FM, WRCJ 90.9 FM, WDET 101.9 FM, Ann Arbor’s 107one, and Metro Times.
Pat Metheny appears by arrangement with The Kurland Agency.
In consideration of the artists and the audience, please refrain from the use of electronic devices during the performance.
Any photography, sound recording, or videotaping of this performance is prohibited.
PROGRAM
This evening’s concert will be announced by the artists from the stage and will be performed without intermission.
 Tonight’s concert is presented in memory of John Kennard, UMS’s longtime director of  nance and administration, and an ardent jazz
and guitar enthusiast, who passed away last spring. As a staff member, John served the University of Michigan for 42 years. He was a dedicated husband, father, and role model for everyone who knew him.
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ARTISTS
Pat Metheny (guitar) was born in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, on August 12, 1954, into
a musical family. Starting on trumpet at the age of eight, Mr. 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. Mr. Metheny  rst burst onto
the international jazz scene in 1974. Over
the course of his three-year stint with vibraphone great Gary Burton, he had already displayed his soon-to-be trademarked playing style, which blended the loose and  exible 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  rst album, Bright Size Life (1975), he reinvented the traditional jazz guitar sound for a new generation of players. Throughout his career, he has continued
to rede ne the genre by utilizing new technology and constantly working to evolve the improvisational and sonic potential of his instrument.
Mr. Metheny’s versatility is nearly without peers on any instrument. Over the years,
he has performed with artists as diverse
as Steve Reich, Ornette Coleman, Herbie Hancock, Jim Hall, Milton Nascimento,
and David Bowie. His body of work includes compositions for solo guitar, small ensembles, electric and acoustic instruments, large orchestras, and ballet pieces, and even the robotic instruments of his Orchestrion project, while always sidestepping the limits of any one genre.
As well as being an accomplished musician, Mr. Metheny has also participated in the academic arena as a music educator.
At 18, he was the youngest teacher ever at the University of Miami. At 19, he became
the youngest teacher ever at the Berklee College of Music, where he also received an honorary doctorate more than 20 years later (1996). He has also taught music workshops all over the world, including at the Dutch Royal Conservatory, the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz, and clinics in Asia and South America. He has also been a true musical pioneer in the realm of electronic music, and was one of the very  rst jazz musicians to treat the synthesizer as a serious musical instrument. Years before the invention of MIDI technology, Mr. Metheny was using
the Synclavier as a composing tool. He has also been instrumental in the development
of several new kinds of guitars, such as the soprano acoustic guitar, the 42-string Pikasso guitar, Ibanez’s PM series jazz guitars, and a variety of other custom instruments.
It is one thing to attain popularity as a musician, but it is another to receive the kind of acclaim Mr. Metheny has garnered from critics and peers. Over the years, Mr. Metheny has won countless polls as “Best Jazz Guitarist” and awards, including three gold records for (Still Life) Talking, Letter from Home, and Secret Story. He has also won 20 Grammy Awards, spread out over a variety of categories, including “Best Rock Instrumental,” “Best Contemporary Jazz Recording,” “Best Jazz Instrumental Solo,” and “Best Instrumental Composition,” and won seven consecutive Grammy Awards for seven consecutive albums. In 2015, he was inducted into the Downbeat Hall of Fame, becoming only the fourth guitarist to be included. This year, Mr. Metheny was elected into the prestigious Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and was honored as an NEA Jazz Master.
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Born in Mexico City in November 1971, Antonio Sánchez (drums) began playing the drums at age  ve and performed professionally in his early teens. He pursued a degree in classical piano at
the National Conservatory in Mexico,
and in 1993 moved to Boston, where he enrolled at the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory, where he graduated magna cum laude in jazz studies.
Since relocating to New York City in 1999, he has become one of the most sought-after drummers in the international jazz scene. His playing is featured in over 100 albums, and he has been the drummer of choice for 20-time Grammy winner Pat Metheny, part of virtually every project the famed guitarist has created since 2000. Mr. Sánchez and Mr. Metheny have recorded 10 albums together, three of which have been awarded Grammys.
Mr. Sánchez has also collaborated with today’s most prominent jazz musicians, and his continuous search as an artist has inspired him to compose and lead his own bands and ensembles. Riding the crest of a musical wave that began with his Golden Globe and BAFTA-nominated score for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Academy Award-winning  lm, Birdman
or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), followed by soundtracks composed for director Fernando León de Aranoa’s Política, Manual de Instrucciones, and EPIX network’s Get Shorty, he released his most personal work to date, Bad Hombre, in 2017. He has taken part in drum festivals, clinics, and master classes around the world, and has been a featured cover artist in some
of the most widely read drum and jazz magazines in the industry. He is endorsed by Yamaha Drums, Zildjian Cymbals and Sticks (Antonio Sánchez Signature model), Remo Drumheads, and LP Percussion. Mr.
Sánchez has made his home in New York City since 1999.
Born in Malaysia and raised in Perth, Western Australia, Linda May Han Oh
(bass) is a bassist and composer who has performed and recorded with artists such as Kenny Barron, Joe Lovano, Dave Douglas, Terri Lyne Carrington, Vijay Iyer, Steve Wilson, and Geri Allen. She has received many awards, including the ASCAP Young Jazz Composer’s Award in 2008, second place at the BASS2010 Competition, and an honorary mention at the 2009 Thelonious Monk Bass Competition. She also received the 2010 Bell Award for “Young Australian Artist of the Year” and was the 2012 Downbeat Critics Poll “Rising Star” on bass.
After graduating from the Manhattan School of Music, she has released three albums as a leader which have received critical acclaim. Her most recent release, Walk Against Wind, features Ben Wendel, Matthew Stevens on guitar, and Justin Brown on drums, along with other guests, such as Fabian Almazan and Korean percussionist Minji Park.
Ms. Oh has written for large and small ensembles as well as for  lm, participating in the BMI Film Composers Workshop, Sundance Labs at Skywalker Ranch, and Sabrina McCormick’s short  lm A Good Egg. She is based in New York City and teaches at the New School. As an active educator, she has also created a series of lessons for the BassGuru app for iPad and iPhone. She was recently awarded a Jerome Foundation Fellowship.
Gwilym Simcock (piano) is one of the most gifted pianists and imaginative composers on the European scene.
He moves effortlessly between jazz and classical music, with a “harmonic sophistication and subtle dovetailing of
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musical traditions.” His in uences are wide-ranging, from jazz legends including Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, Jaco Pastorius, and Pat Metheny, to classical composers including Maurice Ravel, Henri Dutilleux, Béla Bartók, and Mark-Anthony Turnage. Although principally a jazz artist, he has composed numerous works for larger classical ensembles that combine through- composed elements with improvisation, creating a sound that is distinctive and very much his own. His debut album, Perception, was nominated for “Best Album” in the 2008 BBC Jazz Awards
and was critically acclaimed at home and abroad.
Over the last few years, Mr. Simcock has become renowned for his solo performances, releasing Good Days
at Schloss Elmau in 2011 and touring throughout Europe, Australia, the US, Canada, Korea, and China. He has toured extensively with the cream of British and international jazz artists, including
Dave Holland, Kenny Wheeler, Lee Konitz, Bill Bruford’s Earthworks, Bob Mintzer,
and Bobby McFerrin. He co-leads the supergroup The Impossible Gentlemen with British guitar legend Mike Walker, Steve Rodby, and Adam Nussbaum. He
has toured with classical virtuoso Nigel Kennedy and is a professor of jazz piano at the Royal Academy of Music.
UMS ARCHIVES
Tonight’s performance marks Pat Metheny’s third appearance under
UMS auspices, following his UMS debut in November 1997 leading the
Pat Metheny Group at the Michigan Theater. Antonio Sánchez makes his second UMS appearance this evening. Mr. Metheny and Mr. Sánchez most recently appeared under UMS auspices in October 2005 in Hill Auditorium with bassist Christian McBride and saxophonist David Sánchez. UMS welcomes Linda May Han Oh and Gwilym Simcock as they make their UMS debuts tonight.
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  TONIGHT'S VICTORS FOR UMS:
Tom and Debby McMullen
Supporters of this evening’s performance by Pat Metheny.
MAY WE ALSO RECOMMEND...
11/7 Jake Shimabukuro
11/28 Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis
12/8 Charles Lloyd & The Marvels with special guest Lucinda Williams
Tickets available at www.ums.org.
ON THE EDUCATION HORIZON...
10/19 UMS 101: Dance (Hubbard Street Dance Chicago)
(Power Center Green Room, 121 Fletcher Street, 6:00 pm) Paid registration is required for this event; please visit bit.ly/UMSClasses (case sensitive) to register.
In partnership with Ann Arbor Public Schools Rec & Ed.
10/19–20 Post-Performance Artist Q&A: Hubbard Street Dance Chicago (Power Center Auditorium)
Must have a ticket to that evening’s performance to attend.
10/20 You Can Dance: Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
(Ann Arbor Y, 400 W. Washington Street, 1:30 pm) Registration opens 45 minutes prior to the start of the event.
Educational events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.