Pat Metheny

He has three gold albums and 20 Grammy Awards, and is the only person to have won Grammys in 10 categories.

Pat Metheny studied at University of Miami, Lee's Summit High School and Berklee College of Music. The recorded working language is American English and English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are jazz, hard bop, post-bop and Latin pop. Residence is recorded at New York City. Employment is recorded with University of Miami and Berklee College of Music. Distinctions recorded are Paul Acket Award, NEA Jazz Masters and Kansas Music Hall of Fame.

Metheny was born in Lee's Summit, Missouri. His father Dave played trumpet, his mother Lois sang, and his maternal grandfather Delmar was a professional trumpeter. Metheny's first instrument was the trumpet, which he was taught by his brother, Mike. Pat's brother, father, and grandfather played trios together at home. His parents were fans of Glenn Miller and swing music. They took Pat to concerts to hear Clark Terry and Doc Severinsen, but they had little respect for guitar. Pat's interest in guitar increased around 1964 when he saw the Beatles perform on TV. For his 12th birthday, his parents allowed him to buy a guitar, which was a Gibson ES-140 3/4. Pat Metheny's life changed after hearing the album Four & More by Miles Davis. Soon after, he was captivated by Wes Montgomery's album Smokin' at the Half Note which was released in 1965. He cites the Beatles, Miles Davis, and Montgomery as having the biggest impact on his music. When he was 15, Metheny won a scholarship from Down Beat magazine to a one-week jazz camp where he was mentored by guitarist Attila Zoller, who then invited him to New York City to meet guitarist Jim Hall and bassist Ron Carter. While playing at a club in Kansas City, Metheny was approached by Bill Lee, a dean at the University of Miami, and offered a scholarship. After less than a week at college, Metheny realized that playing guitar all day during his teens had left him unprepared for classes. He admitted this to Lee, who offered him a job to teach as a professor, as the school had recently introduced electric guitar as a course of study. He moved to Boston in the early 1970s to teach at the Berklee College of Music under the supervision of jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton and established a reputation as a prodigy.

In 1974, Metheny joined Burton's band alongside fellow guitarist Mick Goodrick, Steve Swallow and Eberhard Weber on bass, and percussionist Bob Moses. While Goodrick played 6-string electric guitar, Metheny introduced the electric 12-string guitar to the sound palette. He immediately appeared on Burton's studio recordings, from the 1974 Ring, Dreams So Real (1976), and Passengers in 1977. With Moses he had also a working trio that included their friend Jaco Pastorius on bass guitar. In June 1974, he and Pastorius were in New York and took part in a session with pianist Paul Bley and Bruce Ditmas on drums, unaware that they were in an actual studio and were being recorded. An album with the material was released two years later on Bley's Improvising Artists label, unofficially titled Jaco. For his debut album, Bright Size Life (1976), in December 1975 the trio flew to Europe and recorded the album during two days in Ludwigsburg (Germany) in one of the preferred studios of producer Manfred Eicher. Metheny and Moses had already been there in July for Gary Burton's Ring, also released through Eicher's label ECM. Initially they rehearsed the material for the recording with Dave Holland on bass, because Eicher refused to have an electric bass on the recording; but in the end he accepted Pastorius to play. According to Metheny, it was Burton, who was present in the studio for the trio recording and acted informally as their actual producer (without being credited). His next album, Watercolors (ECM, 1977), was recorded with Eberhard Weber on bass and Danny Gottlieb on drums, and significantly marked Metheny's first outing with pianist Lyle Mays, who would become his key collaborator in forming the Pat Metheny Group later that year. With Mark Egan on bass, the lineup was set for the group's self-titled debut album, Pat Metheny Group (ECM, 1978).

When Pat Metheny Group (ECM, 1978) was released, the group was a quartet comprising Metheny, Danny Gottlieb on drums, Mark Egan on bass, and Lyle Mays on piano, autoharp, and synthesizer. All but Egan had played on Metheny's album Watercolors (ECM, 1977), recorded the year before. The second group album, American Garage (ECM, 1979), reached number 1 on the Billboard jazz chart and crossed over onto the pop charts. From 1982 to 1985, the Pat Metheny Group released Offramp (ECM, 1982), a live album, Travels (ECM, 1983), First Circle (ECM, 1984), and The Falcon and the Snowman a soundtrack album for the movie of the same name for which they collaborated on the single "This Is Not America" with David Bowie. The song reached number 14 in the British Top 40 in 1985 and number 32 in the U.S. Offramp marked the first appearance of bassist Steve Rodby (replacing Egan) and a Brazilian guest artist, Nana Vasconcelos, on percussion and wordless vocals. On First Circle, Argentinian singer and multi-instrumentalist Pedro Aznar joined the group; as drummer, Paul Wertico replaced Gottlieb. First Circle was Metheny's last album with ECM; he had been a key artist for the European record label but left following disagreements with the label's founder, Manfred Eicher. Still Life (Talking) (Geffen, 1987) featured new group members: trumpeter Mark Ledford, vocalist David Blamires, and percussionist Armando Marçal. Aznar returned for vocals and guitar on Letter from Home (Geffen, 1989). With Metheny working on multiple projects, it was four years before the release of the next group record, a live album titled The Road to You (Geffen, 1993). This release featured live versions of tracks from the two Geffen studio albums as well as previously unreleased tunes. With Speaking of Now (Warner Bros., 2002), new group members were added: drummer Antonio Sánchez from Mexico City, Vietnamese-American trumpeter Cuong Vu, and bassist, vocalist, guitarist, and percussionist Richard Bona from Cameroon. On The Way Up (Nonesuch, 2005), harmonica player Grégoire Maret from Switzerland was introduced as a new group member, while Bona contributed as a guest musician. The album consists of a single 68-minute-long piece—split into four sections—based on a three-note motif: the opening B, A♯, F♯, and its later variation F♯, A, B.

In 2012, Metheny formed the Unity Band with Antonio Sánchez on drums, Ben Williams on bass and Chris Potter on saxophone. This quartet released the album Unity Band (Nonesuch, 2012) and toured Europe and the U.S. during the latter half of the year. In 2013, as an extension of the Unity Band project, Metheny announced the formation of the Pat Metheny Unity Group, with the addition of the Italian multi-instrumentalist Giulio Carmassi.

Outside the Group, Metheny has shown different sides of his musical personality. An early duo billing with Lyle Mays, As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls (ECM, 1981), includes Brazilian percussionist and vocalist Naná Vasconcelos for an elegant set noted for its atmospheric, long-form title track. In 1983, Metheny and Mays wrote music for the Steppenwolf Theater Company's production of Lyle Kessler's play Orphans. It has remained special optional music for productions of the play around the world since. Metheny ventured into experimental jazz with the quartet releases 80/81 (ECM, 1980), Song X (Geffen, 1986) with Ornette Coleman, and The Sign of 4 headed by Derek Bailey (Knitting Factory Works, 1997). In 1997, Metheny recorded with bassist Marc Johnson on Johnson's release The Sound of Summer Running (Verve, 1998). The next year, he recorded a guitar duet with Jim Hall (Telarc, 1999), whose work has strongly influenced Metheny's. He collaborated with Polish jazz and folk singer Anna Maria Jopek on Upojenie (Warner Poland, 2002) and Bruce Hornsby on Hot House (RCA, 2005). He has also played on albums by his older brother, Mike Metheny, a jazz trumpeter, among them Day In – Night Out (1986) and Close Enough for Love (2001).

At the age of 12, Metheny bought a natural finish Gibson ES-175 that he played throughout his early career, until it was retired in 1995. After his first tour of Japan in 1978, he began an association with Ibanez guitars, who have since produced a range of PM signature models.

Metheny was an early proponent of the twelve-string guitar in jazz. During his 1975 tour with the Gary Burton "Quartet" (actually a quintet), he primarily played electric twelve-string guitar against the six-string work of resident guitarist Mick Goodrick. Prior to Metheny, Pat Martino had used the electric twelve-string guitar on a studio album, Desperado, and John McLaughlin had used a double-neck electric guitar with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. Ralph Towner was perhaps the first to use acoustic twelve-string guitar extensively in jazz.

Metheny was one of the first jazz guitarists to use the Roland GR-300 guitar synthesizer. He commented, "you have to stop thinking about it as a guitar, because it no longer is a guitar." He approaches it as if he were a horn player, and he prefers the "high trumpet" sound of the instrument. In addition to the Roland, he uses a Synclavier controller.

Metheny plays a custom-made 42-string Pikasso I created by Canadian luthier Linda Manzer. He plays it on "Into the Dream" and on the albums Quartet (1996), Imaginary Day (1997), Jim Hall & Pat Metheny (1999), Trio → Live (Warner Bros., 2000), and the Speaking of Now Live and Imaginary Day Live DVDs. Metheny has used the guitar in his guest appearances on other artists' albums. He used the Pikasso on Metheny/Mehldau Quartet (Nonesuch, 2007), his second collaboration with pianist Brad Mehldau and his trio sidemen Larry Grenadier and Jeff Ballard; the Pikasso is featured on Metheny's composition "The Sound of Water". Manzer has made many acoustic guitars for Metheny, including a mini guitar, an acoustic sitar guitar, and the baritone guitar, which Metheny used for the recording of One Quiet Night (2003).

Metheny is the younger brother of jazz flugelhornist Mike Metheny. He lives in New York City with his wife, Latifa (née Azhar), and three children. Latifa has been credited for album photography. Metheny was once in a relationship with Sônia Braga. Due to an unscheduled medical procedure he had to interrupt his concerts in China in May 2025.

The following is a partial list of Metheny's notable collaborators:

Pat Metheny is the only person to have won Grammy Awards in ten different categories.

Partial list of other (non-Grammy) awards and honors for Pat Metheny: DownBeat Hall of Fame, 2013 Miles Davis Award, Montreal International Jazz Festival, 1995 Orville H. Gibson Award, 1996 Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music, 1996 Guitarist of the Year, DownBeat Readers' Poll, 1983, 1986–1991, 2007–2016 Best Jazz Guitarist, Guitar Player magazine, 1982, 1983, 1986 Best Jazz Guitarist, Guitar Player magazine Readers' Poll, 1984, 1985, 2009 Best Acoustic Guitarist, Acoustic Guitar magazine Readers' Poll, 2009 Echo Award for Best Guitar Instrumentalist – International for TAP: John Zorn's Book of Angels Vol. 20, 2014 Echo Award, International Ensemble of the Year, Kin, 2015 Missouri Music Hall of Fame, 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award, JazzFM, 2018 Elected into Royal Swedish Academy of Music, 2018 2018 NEA Jazz Masters, 2017 Honorary Doctorate of Music from McGill University, 2019