Metheny Trio adhere to rhythm method at Blue Note

Steve Bornfeld

Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2000 | 9:12 a.m.

There is playing a musical instrument.

And there's making love to it.

On those terms, the Pat Metheny Trio demonstrated the Kama Sutra on the stage of the Blue Note Las Vegas Monday night.

Launching a six-night stand at Las Vegas' newest jazz joint (open only since August, it's practically virginal), guitar guru Pat and the boys -- bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Bill Stewart -- set the foreplay in motion early on in the early set:

Metheny's gentle guitar licks caressing a luscious melody line ... Stewart's slowly revolving brush strokes tingling like an erotic whisper ... Grenadier's purring bass moaning softly, ever more sensuously, like a lover in full surrender ...

Cigarette?

Lovemaking is the most apt metaphor for how these musicians relate to their music -- gushing from a wellspring of pure passion. And for jazz icon Metheny, that passion has never been more public.

This, after all, is the artist who made news recently by harrumphing -- and rather colorfully, with some words we won't print here -- over saxophonist's Kenny G's overdubbing on the classic Louis Armstrong vocal track of "What a Wonderful World," declaring it, among other things, an act of "musical necrophilia." It was, of course, but the utterance of such truth sets Metheny up as the current Guardian Of All That Is Pure and Musically Right In Jazz.

And that assumes that you consider the G Man a jazz man, a seriously dubious proposition. (G performs Saturday at House of Blues -- do you suppose we could arrange one of those "Celebrity Deathmatch" contests between him and Metheny?)

Fortunately, Metheny is the prince of artistic purity at the Blue Note.

Greeted very warmly by an openly affectionate crowd -- and clearly enthused about the Vegas venue and gratified by the response -- Metheny and the boys painted vibrant musical portraits with their takes on "Soul Cowboy," "What Do You Want?" "Into the Dream," "So May It Secretly Begin" and "Question and Answer," among others.

Trio jazz shimmers with a sparse urgency, distilling the music to its essence. And Metheny -- who recently released the album "Trio 99>00" with these stellar comrades -- milks the magic, his playing as fizzy as a freshly popped can of Sprite. Breathtaking riffs nose dive, U-turn and double back on the rhythm in balletic bursts of chords.

At the onset of "Into the Dream," Metheny switches to a dual-necked beast of a guitar that produces an incredibly crystalline sound with a gorgeous chime-like resonance -- it's the sound you want to hear when you're standing at the gates of heaven. Then, pole vaulting over octaves, Metheny's guitar nearly mimics an eagle's cry, as if skipping along the edge of the atmosphere, free from all restraints.

It was an almost, well, sexual experience. And, after relentless demands for an encore returned an obviously energized Metheny to the stage, a kind of erotic afterglow draped the room.

There was nothing left to do but cuddle.