Customer Reviews:
Dissapointing in some aspects.......2007-08-10
I am a died in the wool Pat Metheney fan and have been for the past 25 years. I rented this DVD so that i could decide whether I wanted to buy it. I do not think it lives up to the high standards set by previous performances. Why? Firstly, the video imaging was appalling --i could'nt beleive that Pat and Steve would let this kind of quality go to production under the PMG banner.Secondly, it seemed that the group was always in a hurry--part of a complete performance is a mixture of tempo and rythyms which is designed to set a mood. It just wasn't here. I am told that this DVD only depicts half of the concert--thats sad because something is missing here. Antonio needs to listen to Shelly Manne or Buddy Rich to realize that you don't have to beat the cymbals to death to swing. Having said that I bought the DVD for one track--"James"--a real joy to listen to and one of the few times when the group really got it going. One more thing--Chu Vong may be a great technician but he comes across really cold here --no warmth. Sorry, not my kind of trumpet player. Not one of Pat's better concerts, I still prefer Imaginery Day.
The music of our age........2007-06-24
To me, Pat Metheny Group represents a high-water mark in Jazz. In one composition, The Way Up encompasses everything there is to love about music. Its symmetry between the individual and the group, its lights and shades, its subtleties and its emphases. Here is a genuinely classical composition to which all listeners could attune.
I adore the way the differing musical themes are explored separately and then interwoven. I revel in the space given to some exceptional soloing; notably that of Antonio Sanchez taking polyrhythmic drumming to the ultimate. But most of all, I sink into this music as one does a favorite movie book or daydream- one knows it off by heart and loves it more every time.
A must have dvd.......2007-01-28
Pat and Lyle wrote this one movement piece (about 60 mins) which incorporates a lot of the Metheny Group history all they've learnt and acheived since the 70's whenthey first formed. It is also in direct response to our modern media age where everything has to be short, simplified and to the point to keep a mass audiences attention. It goes against this grain and works splendidly, keeping the listener interested and the music in a n evolving non resolving state right up until the end-a kind of jazz symphony for the modern age. There are no strings on this album just the 6 or 7 members of the current PMG. The sound is good and performance exciting and there's plenty to keep the eye interested. A front row seat at a PMG concert.
Just brilliant.......2007-01-03
The last few PMG releases have been supplemented with a live DVD taken from the tour supporting the album; this gives those of us who attended the shows a nice souvenir of the live event, along with some insight into how the performance was put together. Nowhere is this more illuminating than for The Way Up, a lengthy, complex, interlocking piece that continually rewards repeated and careful listenings. Seeing the band perform it in concert was a remarkable experience, but the DVD is in some ways even better, since it provides fascinating closeups on the band members as they stitch together the performance of this extraordinary music. There's only seven of them, but they produce a wide variety of sound - partly owing to each of them (with the exception of Metheny himself) playing on multiple instruments. For example, all of them (including the drummer) end up playing guitar at some point during the show.
This is a definitive live rendering of this piece, with a sound quality that's greatly superior to any audience recording I've heard. The only other video of The Way Up that I've seen was its final performance; that was a free show for more than a hundred thousand people at the close of the 2005 Montreal Jazz Festival. The atmosphere of that performance was almost overwhelming (by contrast, the audience is just about invisible at this show, which has an almost live-in-the-studio feel about it), but the broadcast was flawed by being incomplete (taking excerpts from this piece is akin to chopping up a symphony, I think).
Those who attended the shows will know that the live performance of The Way Up omits the reflective ambient passage at the end, preferring to finish in a slightly more definitive fashion. This DVD also misses the transition from the separate acoustic piece (This Is Not America) that Pat played as an introduction, which saw the band entering the stage playing toy instruments. And finally, it should be noted that, while those shows contained an entire second half of older material (played in some interesting combinations of duos, trios and quartets as well as the full band), none of that is included here: all there is is The Way Up. But that's more than enough for anyone. Just brilliant.
A musical journey head and shoulders above anything else!.......2006-10-07
It's fairly simple really. I can't see how music can get any better than this awesome dvd. A 68 minute feast of visual and musical entertainment - beautifully filmed and unrivalled by anything else I've ever listened to or watched! Go and see a doctor and check you're still alive if you can't appreciate just how good this is. Not only essential, but number one in my personal "Desert Island Discs". Buy it.
Customer Reviews:
Beware - Bootleg.......2007-12-19
This is not the official PMG DVD. It's a bootleg by the notorious Jazz Door label, taken from a Canadian TV production.
Do not buy.
DVD Review:
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DVD Review List
DVD Review
![The Pat Metheny Group - Pat Metheny Group - The Way Up: Live [2005]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21zVkDMLIxL.jpg)
Concerts
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Music DVDs
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Categories
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DVD
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Video
The Pat Metheny Group - Pat Metheny Group - Imaginary Day Live / Speaking Of Now Live
Metheny Mehldau
The Pat Metheny Group - Speaking Of Now Live
Quartet
Day Trip
![The Pat Metheny Group - Pat Metheny Group - The Way Up: Live [2005]](http://www.bill88.com/buy.gif)
![The Pat Metheny Group - Pat Metheny Group - The Way Up: Live [2005]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21M0DIf%2B6VL.jpg)
