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Flea Finds His Jazz Thing
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The Pat Metheny Unity Group will release The Unity Sessions, one of two new albums from the guitarist on Nonesuch Records, on May 6
(Photo: Jimmy Katz ©2013 Pat Metheny Tours)Coming off a banner year that included a stint as artist-in-residence for the Detroit Jazz Festival, guitarist Pat Metheny will release two new albums that place him in the dual roles of leader and sideman. Nonesuch Records will release The Unity Sessions and Cuong Vu Meets Pat Metheny on May 6.
Both albums feature collaborators and colleagues with whom the 61-year-old Grammy-winning guitarist has worked for years. The Unity Sessions is taken from a filmed performance with the Pat Metheny Unity Group (drummer Anonio Sanchez, saxophonist Chris Potter, bassist Ben Williams, multi-instrumentalist Giulio Carmassi) that was recently released on DVD. The set comprises 13 songs by Metheny, including one he co-wrote with Ornette Coleman, and a well-known standard by Ray Noble.
The group’s first record, Kin (←→) (Nonesuch), was voted Jazz Album of the Year in the 2014 DownBeat Readers Pol.
On Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny, the guitarist joins a trio led by longtime Pat Metheny Group trumpeter Cuong Vu. (Other members of the trio include Stomu Takeishi on bass and Ted Poor on drums.) The album consists of five tunes written by Vu plus one by Metheny and one by Andrew D’Angelo.
Pre-orders of The Unity Sessions and Cuong Vu Trio Meets Pat Metheny are available now at iTunes and nonesuch.com, each with an instant download of a track from its album (“This Belongs to You” and “Let’s Get Back,” respectively).
“Cerebral and academic thought is a different way to approach music,” Flea says of his continuing dive into jazz. “I’ve always relied on emotion and intuition and physicality.”
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