Jazz Guitarists Jim Hall and Pat Metheny.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: JULY 14, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 071401np.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Jazz Guitar Master's Jim Hall and Pat Metheny
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:06

TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Jim Hall is the favorite guitarist of many jazz musicians and listeners. For example, he's always been one of guitarist Pat Metheny's favorites. Metheny counts Hall as one of his greatest influences.

Metheny has a big following among jazz and rock fans, and, like Hall, has won many jazz polls. Now Hall and Metheny have collaborated on a new CD of duets. It's the coming together of two different generations and styles.

Hall started recording in the '50s, Metheny in the late '70s. Metheny has used synthesizers and other electronics to alter his sound. Whereas Hall describers himself as still in the "Kerosene Age," just a man a guitar and an amp.

We invited Jim Hall and Pat Metheny to join us and compare notes on their development as guitarists. Let's start with a track from their new CD. This is a Jim Hall composition called "Lookin' Up."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- JAZZ GUITARISTS JIM HALL AND PAT METHENY PERFORMING "LOOKIN' UP")

GROSS: Music from the new CD, "Jim Hall and Pat Metheny." Jim Hall and Pat Metheny, welcome to FRESH AIR.

JIM HALL, JAZZ GUITARIST: Thank you. Thanks a lot, Terry.

PAT METHENY, JAZZ GUITARIST: Thanks, Terry. Great to be here.

GROSS: Well, Pat Metheny, you grew up with rock and roll, and I'm wondering if that affected your idea of guitar playing and guitar amplification.

METHENY: Um...

GROSS: ... I'm presuming you grew up with rock and roll, I might be wrong.

METHENY: Well, you know, it's funny my case is a little odd. Yes, I did kind of get interested in the guitar at age 8 or 9, you know, like millions of other kids largely to do the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan and that whole phenomenon that happened at that time.

The odd thing in my case is that within a matter of weeks after getting a guitar, my older brother, Mike, brought home a Miles Davis record, "Four and More." And that changed my life immediately, and it wasn't a gradual thing for me, it was sort of like an on/off switch that got switched.

And I became probably the world's youngest jazz snob...

LAUGHTER

... I mean, by age 12 all I wanted to listen to was Trane and Miles and Sonny Rollins and Jim and Bill Evans and those records. And continued that way until I was 18 or 19 years old and started playing with Gary Burton, whose band, you know, was messing around with things outside of just the straight up and down jazz, you know, tradition or whatever you'd want to call it.

And it was kind of at that point that I became more kind of interested in kind of the other stuff that the guitar could do.

GROSS: It's funny, I mean, like Jim Hall, when you were growing up the popular music was jazz, right?

HALL: In a certain sense it was. There were these marvelous big bands around which were -- the musicianship level was really high and they were also popular with the public. I think largely because people could dance to them. So, yeah, that was popular.

And -- but I'm sure there were tons of garbage around.

LAUGHTER

GROSS: Oh, well, there always is.

HALL: Yeah, there always is. Exactly. People don't change that much. But my kind of spiritual awakening was when I heard Charlie Christian on a record with the Benny Goodman sextet. And I say this a lot, but I didn't really know what he -- I had been playing about three years in little groups that I didn't know what Charlie Christian was doing, but I said that's great. I wish I could do that. And I still say the same thing.

GROSS: Well, I want to play another track from your new duet CD, "Jim Hall, Pat Metheny." And Pat Metheny, I'm going to ask you to choose a track. I know that you -- that Jim Hall was one of the greatest influences on your playing, particularly when you were young and coming of age. I'm going to ask you to choose a track from the CD that you particularly like for Jim Hall's playing.

METHENY: I think I'd pick the track "Falling Grace." Not -- I, mean I love the way Jim plays on this whole record. It's actually, you know, there are so many things that Jim does so beautifully and one of them is his ability to accompany people is really sort of off the scale great.

And of course he always plays these brilliant solos, but there's some stuff that he does when he plays behind people that is absolutely singular, there's just nothing like it. And he really has this link to like Freddie Green (ph) and that way of playing rhythm that is just about not around anymore.

And yet at the same time it's very modern, what he does, and the way plays -- he plays a beautiful solo too, but the accompanying parts that he plays, you know, when I'm playing the melody on this track just kill me every time.

GROSS: OK. So, this is "Falling Grace" from the Jim Hall/Pat Metheny duet record.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- JAZZ GUITARISTS JIM HALL AND PAT METHENY PERFORMING "FALLING GRACE")

GROSS: That's Jim Hall and Pat Metheny from their new duet record on Telarc Jazz.

How did you guys both meet?

HALL: We -- I like to tell this story, so I'm going to jump in here.

GROSS: OK.

HALL: Pat was a juvenile delinquent.

LAUGHTER

GROSS: I don't think so.

LAUGHTER

HALL: In New York. He had -- well, he had taken leave of home for a short while and he came to New York. And he was with our mutual friend, whom we just lost, Atilla Zolar (ph). And I was playing in a club called The Guitar, I was working with Ron Carter.

And Atilla brought this kid in with braces on his teeth, and I think you were 15, Pat.

METHENY: Yeah.

HALL: And introduced him to Jane, my wife and I -- and me. And that's how we met. And I think Atilla was kind of taking Pat around New York. He had heard Freddie Hubbard and Bill Evans' trio. And so I became aware of him then, and Atilla said, "this kid is terrific, man." Atilla was from Hungary. That's my Hungarian accent.

And so -- and then I noticed Pat. I started to pay attention when he joined Gary Burton's group. So, I've known him that long.

METHENY: Yeah, we go back a ways. And of course for me, you know, just hearing Jim -- that trip live, that would have been in 1971, was just kind of a revelation for me. Of course I already loved Jim's playing from records, but seeing him -- we actually went, I think, five nights in a row.

HALL: Right, I forgot.

METHENY: We went every night to hear you all. It was really the best music I had ever heard come from a guitar. And to this day I have memories, flashbacks of that gig. I mean, it was so fresh what Jim and Ron were playing together. And, you know, so he was already my hero, but he became doubly my hero from that experience. And we kind of stayed in touch over the years.

HALL: Yeah.

METHENY: You know, when I kind of moved, you know, up to the, you know, East Coast area, you know, we'd see each other here and there.

HALL: We played a concert in '82, I think, together, right?

METHENY: That's right, at City College in New York.

HALL: Yeah.

METHENY: And then we did a little tour in France a few years later, or I guess in the late '80s or early '90s, something like that. And we always talked about maybe , you know, playing together, you know on a record or something because I think we always had a real natural easy rapport as players.

It was always fun and easy for us to play together. And I think we always really responded to the way we listen to each other as players too, which is for me just the thing that I always look for in somebody that I really want to like make a record with or play with that much.

I mean, it sort of went beyond for me the point well, Jim is my favorite guitar player and all that. It went to another thing of like, well, we play good together and we can make music together in a natural easy kind of way.

GROSS: My guests are guitarists Pat Metheny and Jim Hall. We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

BREAK

GROSS: My guests are guitarists Jim Hall and Pat Metheny. They have a new CD of duets.

Jim Hall, I'm going to ask you to choose a track from your new duet record with Pat Metheny that you think really show off his playing.

HALL: Well, I like -- there's two choices I'd say. "Summertime," but Pat just plays rhythm on it but it's so amazing. I just sort of float over the room. That's one. The other is "Farmer's Trust," which is Pat's tune, which I love. It's a lovely tune.

So, I would say between those two or both.

GROSS: Well, you're going to have to choose one.

HALL: OK.

GROSS: Rules of the game.

LAUGHTER

HALL: "Farmer's Trust."

GROSS: OK, we'll play "Farmer's Trust." Why did you choose it?

HALL: I chose it because I love the tune. I like the title. It's kind of a play on words. Farmer's Trust is a bank, I believe. Right?

METHNEY: Yeah.

HALL: In your hometown. And so it has kind of a mixed message, and it's a lovely tune. And I enjoyed playing the melody on it and I love the way Pat plays on it.

GROSS: OK. This is from the new duet record featuring Jim Hall and Pat Metheny.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- JAZZ GUITARISTS JIM HALL AND PAT METHENY PERFORMING "FARMER'S TRUST")

GROSS: That's Jim Hall and Pat Metheny from their new CD of duets.

You each started performing in different decades. Jim Hall, you started I think in the '50s; Pat Metheny, you in the '70s. I'd like you each to describe what the jazz scene was like; what the performance venues were like when you first started performing.

Jim Hall, you want to start?

HALL: I like the term "venue."

LAUGHTER

My first venue was Molly's Bar in Cleveland, Ohio.

LAUGHTER

With kind of sawdust on the floor, I think. But I was 13 then. You couldn't really call that the jazz scene.

LAUGHTER

That's a lovely euphemism, "venue." I like that. It's a little difficult for me to say, because I was -- first of all, I was incredibly lucky. My first sort of, I guess you'd say, big time job after I got out of music school was with Chico Hamilton. And I was meeting all my heroes and occasionally getting to play with them.

So, I didn't really care where we played. We played in some -- mostly nightclubs. The idea of a concert was kind of rare for us. It was mostly -- Duke Ellington had done some concert things, and people like that. But -- and then gradually the jazz festivals started to show up, like the Newport Jazz Festival, I remember when that started -- and the Monterey Festival.

But there were just a handful -- and there was -- I felt that almost nothing in terms of Europe. Unless you lived in Paris or something like that. But now I think I spend more time in Europe and Japan than I do -- playing, I mean -- than I do in the States.

So, it was quite different in that way. It's still tons of fun for me, and it was fun then.

GROSS: Did you have any sense when you were getting started of what the jazz life was supposed to be or what you wanted it to be?

HALL: I had -- I had a junior high school principal who called me into his office one day, and he -- sort of to tell me the facts of life. And he said something about -- I was going to be -- I was going to be a jazz musician and then I went someplace and I saw the way those guys lived and I thought, good luck. Now your junior high school principal, what's so great about that?

I didn't really know. I just knew that the music just kind of took me over.

GROSS: Mmm-hmm.

HALL: And I tell instantly that I had joined a family. It cuts across all kinds of boundaries -- ethnic boundaries, gender boundaries, age boundaries all the boundaries that people make. And I love that. And it was just great, and still is.

GROSS: Pat Metheny, what was like the jazz scene like when you started playing in the '70s and what did you expect of the jazz life?

METHNEY: I was very lucky to grow up close to Kansas City, I'm from a little town in Missouri called Lee Summit, Missouri that's, you know, within driving distance of Kansas City where at that time there was a very active jazz scene. As there remains to this day.

I mean, there are so many good players in Kansas City that, you know, for a city of its size its -- I don't know that I've ever seen any place quite like that. The lucky part for me is that there were very few guitar players. So, starting from the time I was about 14 or 15 I was able to start working with a lot of the best musicians in town and continued doing that until I, you know, got out of school and moved away.

So that was really my training ground, which was -- it was fortunate for me because it wasn't a theoretical thing; it wasn't in the environment of a jazz education program or something like that. I mean, I really learned how to play by playing with guys who were much older and much better than me.

And, you know, I was just lucky to be in that situation, and it's helped me ever since. And that continued shortly after I got out of school, as I mentioned before, I began playing in Gary Burton's group which was a fantastic band with Steve Swallow playing bass and Bob Moses playing drums.

And, you know, I played with them for three years and started, you know, making records and everything like that. And then got to start my own band when I was like 21 or 22 years old. And that's kind of when, you know, sort of like cold water getting dropped over your head.

I mean, being a bandleader and travelling around, you know, the way we did which was roughly 250 to 300 gigs a year for 12 or 15 years which is sort of about how long that tour lasted, was really a whole different thing, you know. And I guess I didn't really have an image in mind of what it would be like.

All I knew, and know, to this day, it's sort of like what Jim was saying is that I feel so glad that I'm, you know, just a member of this community of musicians that is so special. That, you know, it's a way of living your life that is just the greatest.

I mean, you know, we get to play for people who actually like the music with -- and I've been able to play with a lot of the best musicians on Earth, some of whom are musicians that real heroes for me. So, I mean, you're not going to hear any complaints from the guitar department over here.

HALL: Yeah, same here.

GROSS: Pat Metheny, this might be a good time for me to pick up on something that Jim Hall said earlier when he was describing how you both met. He said that you were a juvenile delinquent who had temporarily left home. Was that an accurate description?

METHNEY: Well, that may be a little bit exaggerated. If my parents are listening they wouldn't hear it quite like that.

HALL: He's an adult delinquent now.

METHNEY: Yeah, I'm still slightly delinquent. I don't know about juvenile any more, but, no, I was actually in fact very serious about music at a very young age which caused people to really be concerned about me; probably with good reason as I look back on it now.

You know, I was, you know, you could almost say obsessed with the idea of learning about music and particularly jazz. To the point where I would practice, you know, 12, 15 hours a day for weeks on end just trying to come to grips with the language of music, particularly bebop. Which I don't know any other way you can do it. I mean, it's hard on any instrument.

On the guitar it's nearly impossible to really deal with that vocabulary. And I guess everybody was just worried me because I was also not studying math or history or anything like that. I was just practicing all the time.

So, I guess that's where my juvenile delinquent reputation comes from.

LAUGHTER

GROSS: But you weren't running around the street with switchblade knives, on the other hand.

METHNEY: No, no, just guitar picks.

HALL: No. We took him off the street and got him a guitar and look what happened to him.

LAUGHTER

It should be a lesson to all of us.

GROSS: Jim Hall and Pat Metheny have a new CD of duets on Telarc Jazz. They'll be back in the second half of the show.

I'm Terry Gross and this is FRESH AIR.

BREAK

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

Back with guitarists Jim Hall and Metheny. They have a new CD of duets. It's the coming together of two different generations and two different approaches to the instrument. Hall started recording in the '50s, Metheny in the late '70s. Metheny has used synthesizers and other electronics to alter his sound. Hall just has his amp.

Now, you've both done your share in kind of expanding what a guitar does. And I would like you to each talk a little bit about what was expected of a guitarist when you started performing. You know, what did other people assume that the guitarist's role in the band was supposed to be?

Jim Hall, let's start with you.

HALL: Yeah, that's interesting. I probably inferred out of guilt and that sort of stuff that I should be able to play decent rhythm guitar with or without -- the King Cole Trio was great in that Oscar Moore played slightly amplified rhythm, so I could do that.

So, you had to have a good rhythmic feel, whatever that means, and I would say really to fit in was so important. I played a lot -- especially when I was in my early teens, I played in a lot of groups where there was no bass fiddle -- no string bass.

And a lot of times there'd be drums, accordion, clarinet and guitar -- that sort of thing. So...

GROSS: ... what a strange combination.

LAUGHTER

HALL: It seems so now, doesn't it? It was pretty usual. I remember when I heard my first string bass, and I couldn't get over it. I said, "wow, what is that? Low."

LAUGHTER

I'm not sure -- I guess playing good -- fitting in, making whatever situation -- but this goes for any instrument though. So, let's see, I'll try to narrow it down: rhythm playing was important in small groups and also in big bands. Being able to read music, for me anyway, was important -- the kind of challenge that I had.

And then to have an amplifier so that one could play a melody occasionally or a solo, if you were allowed to. The amp was still relatively a new thing, I think. This was in the 1930 -- early '40s. So, I think Charlie Christian had kind of made the amp part of the vocabulary.

I hadn't really thought of that before, but I hope I did it OK.

GROSS: I'm wondering too, if there were any things that expected of you as the guitarist in the band early in your career that you didn't think really suited you.

HALL: Singing.

LAUGHTER

Singing -- dancing, I can't dance.

GROSS: Was the guitarist expected to dance?

LAUGHTER

HALL: I don't really know. Playing loud, I guess. For some reason, I'm still not sure why. I never was able to -- I tried to kind of blend in all the time. Playing fast, there you are, there's one. If anybody ever asked me to play fast, I'm going home. And I still feel like that.

LAUGHTER

GROSS: Why is that?

HALL: I think it's partly me my makeup, my personality makeup. I tend to take a -- I take a long view of things even if I'm just walking down the street I tend to gawk around and look at things. It's hard for me to move fast or to think fast. I'm not thinking terribly fast at the moment.

LAUGHTER

But, yeah, I'd rather play -- I'd rather play something with a nice groovy feeling to it than play "I Got Rhythm" real fast.

GROSS: Mmm-hmm.

HALL: Or "Giant Steps." I sort of make a kind of joke that on the subways where it says "handicap seating" I'm allowed to sit there because of the way I play...

LAUGHTER

... anybody asks me to move, I say, "have you heard me play `Giant Steps?'"

GROSS: That's funny. Pat Metheny, when you were first starting to play what was expected of you as the guitarist in the band? And did you ever feel anybody ever expected you to like play fast like Tal Farlow or get Wes Montgomery's sound before you knew what the Pat Metheny was and who you were, what your real identity was as a player?

METHENY: Well, I was lucky to be around musicians in Kansas City who actively discouraged that. Who, when you would play something that sounded like Wes Montgomery, instead of saying, "wow, that's great that you sound like Wes Montgomery," they would kind of dis you for it.

And that is something that has really changed just between my generation and the generations that have followed, is that now it's kind of OK if you sound like somebody else; hardly anybody even questions it anymore. It's sort -- it's just kind of part of the thing.

For me, I really came up -- even though I feel very strongly indebted to Wes and Jim as well, whenever I find myself doing overtly Jim kinds of things or Wes kinds of things I don't see it as a good thing. I don't see it as that's success. To me that's like, you know, I should try not to do that, you know.

And, you know, that's something I always attribute to, you know, some guys that I was around in Kansas City who always, you know, made sure to let me know that jazz is music of individuals. And of people finding their own voice and their own way of playing and their own of looking at music.

And, you know, I've always been around -- luckily been around musicians who really kind of put that in no uncertain terms. I mentioned Gary Burton a few times. He's a strong individual kind of player. I was lucky to be around Ornette Coleman quite a bit, who is probably the most individual of individuals, you know, when it comes to defining your own way of thinking about music.

And that's always been very important to me. Even though I've embraced a lot of different things, stylistically, I always try to do it from a real personal point of view.

GROSS: My guests are guitarists Jim Hall and Pat Metheny. They have a new CD of duets. We'll talk more after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

BREAK

GROSS: My guests are Pat Metheny and Jim Hall. And they have a new CD of guitar duets.

I've asked you each to choose records that you think show off the other to good effect on the new CD. Pat Metheny, I'd like to ask you to choose one of your favorite Jim Hall tracks from Jim Hall's whole body of work. Perhaps a track that greatly influenced you when you were coming of age.

METHENY: I would pick the track "My Funny Valentine" on the Jim Hall/Bill Evans record, "Undercurrent." Jim's solo on that is just a classic, and certainly influenced not just me, but now a bunch a generations of musicians.

GROSS: Why don't we hear the solo from that.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- JAZZ GUITARIST JIM HALL PERFORMING "MY FUNNY VALENTINE")

GROSS: That's Jim Hall with Bill Evans from their album "Undercurrents." My guests are Jim Hall and Pat Metheny, who have a new duet CD.

Jim Hall, let me ask you to choose one of your favorite tracks by Pat Metheny from his body of work.

HALL: It's interesting, I can't really choose a specific track, but I love the whole CD, "A Secret Story" CD -- I loved the composition on that. I love the idea that -- for me, with Pat it's a whole --each CD is kind of a composition in itself. And that was, I would say, my favorite.

GROSS: Pat Metheny, would you like to narrow it down from that recording?

METHENY: Let me think what be a good one from that record. That's such a compositional record, like you say, it's kind of one long thing. Maybe at the very end of that record there's one tune called "Tell Her You Saw Me," that's a ballad that's pretty. That might be a good one.

GROSS: Sounds good to me, let's hear it.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- JAZZ GUITARIST PAT METHENY PERFORMING "TELL HER YOU SAW ME")

GROSS: That's Pat Metheny. And my guests are guitarists Pat Metheny and Jim Hall. They have a new duet CD.

How did you each know that guitar was it for you? That it wasn't going to be about trumpet or clarinet or piano; it was guitar?

HALL: In my case I had an uncle -- my Uncle Ed in kind of hillbilly Ohio who played the guitar and sang kind of like Willie Nelson stuff. And I'm, again, inferring like a hundred years later, but I think I kind of looked up to him. He also always had cute ladies around him, so that was another incentive.

But he played the guitar, and then my mom got me a guitar when I was nine, I think. But the interesting -- ironic or whatever part of it for me is that I quickly realized that I -- the instrument that I really hear more than the guitar even is maybe the tenor saxophone. I hear someplace between the tenor saxophone and the piano.

So even though I'm playing the guitar, I think my hearing or my psyche or whatever it is, is more attuned to wind instruments. So, it was kind of a split there.

GROSS: Have you ever played one?

HALL: No -- well, I played piano a bit to get through music school, but I played with some great saxophone players. I was really fortunate that way, starting with Ben Webster and then Sonny Rollins of course. And then Paul Desmond, I worked with Paul a lot.

And now I'm work with Greg Osby, speaking of individuals, he's determinedly individual.

METHENY: He sure is.

GROSS: So what do you think it is about, say, saxophones that carries over into your playing? I mean, it's not the rhythm part, there's no like rhythm saxophone. What is it about the tone or...

HALL: ... yeah, in the case of the tenor saxophone it's the register of it I think and the breath of it. The long -- the fact that you can play a note really long and make it sustain.

GROSS: Mmm-hmm.

HALL: The fact that you can't hear picking sounds when a guy plays a saxophone. So, I - especially when I was with Jim Giuffre, Jimmy would get after me if he heard lots of picking in something that he had written. So I'd try to figure out a saxophone way of playing it.

So, I guess it's the breath and the expressiveness that's possible on a wind instrument. And I try to get that out of the guitar. And in a certain sense I use the amplifier to play softer, in that if I'm playing with an amp -- amplifier -- I can hit the strings softer, I can use a softer gauge string and still have it project.

Whereas if I were playing an acoustic guitar, I'd really kind of have to bang on it to project.

GROSS: So, do you think you use the amplifier, too, to get some of the sustain and legato that a horn player could easily get?

HALL: Yeah, exactly.

GROSS: And Pat Metheny, how did you know that guitar was it for you?

METHENY: Well, I'm from a family of trumpet players, and I in fact started on trumpet myself when I was about eight. My older brother Mike is an excellent trumpet player, kind of -- he was almost like a child prodigy around the Kansas City area playing concerts and stuff; certainly, he was, you know, very young.

And my dad is a good trumpet player. My grandfather was a professional player his whole life -- played under John Phillip Souse and, you know, it was just a natural thing to play the trumpet.

Jim mentioned that when he first met me I had braces on my teeth, which I did for almost four years. And that made playing the trumpet excruciatingly painful.

LAUGHTER

And besides that, I wasn't a natural trumpet player the way my brother was. And I was constantly being compared to him, you know, because he was this kind of sensation. So -- and, you know, the thing of the Beatles and the guitar and all that stuff happening, you know, as a cultural phenomenon definitely got my attention as well.

And also the last thing in the world my parents wanted me to do was play the guitar, which at age 11 was like throwing gasoline on a fire as my desire for the guitar increased. So, I just kind of gravitated towards it for probably not musical reasons at the beginning.

But once I sort of found myself in the midst of it, and started to hear some of the music that had been played on the instrument in jazz, it seemed like a kind of open ended place to be. And, you know, I have to admit there are -- that I hear trumpet in my head.

I mean, my favorite musicians in many cases are trumpet players, especially Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard. Those are kind of my two real models with Clifford Brown not far behind, especially for phrasing details.

And I still love trumpet players, and I have to admit when I'm playing I'm thinking trumpet in a lot of ways. Even in terms of breathing and fingering and everything. But the guitar has something else in its flexibility that's real special.

GROSS: You mentioned breathing -- you know, breathing as if you were playing trumpet. When you're playing a wind instrument you really have to know where to breathe and you have to breathe in a musical place. Theoretically when you're playing guitar no one will know when you're breathing, but do you still have to figure out where you're going to breathe?

METHENY: You know, it's funny, I hold my breath while I'm playing and when I take a pause I -- in the line -- I breathe. And I've always done that. And it's just a subconscious thing for me that comes from starting out as a trumpet player, I think.

GROSS: Jim Hall, what about you? Do you find that too?

HALL: Yeah. That's actually a terrific question. I -- Pat and I recorded before this duet album, Pat did one track on an album of mine. We played "Jango" with a group of strings, and we both played acoustic guitars and the microphone was close to my head and I could hear myself not only breathing but singing. It's a pretty disgusting sound, actually.

LAUGHTER

But I know that I was breathing. I sound like I'm ordering from the booth.

LAUGHTER

Yeah, evidently I do. And more than I knew even. I guess I sing everything that I play, or attempt to sing it. So, yes, I am breathing too.

GROSS: On your new CD of duets, the "Jim Hall, Pat Metheny" CD, there are two standards: "All The Things You Are" and "Summertime." I'm wondering how you each see the place of standards in your own music.

Jim Hall, you've recorded a lot of standards over the years.

HALL: I have. That's, again, that's a good question because I still love to play "Body and Soul," but I've played it, I don't know, zillions of times. And I have a low boredom threshold, I think. So I usually in every set of music that I do I play probably one standard, usually a ballad. Although, "All The Things You Are" can be either a ballad or zippy.

I think Pat and I did it in 3/4 on this thing. But standard tunes -- tunes from the era that what I kind of call the Golden Age of American Popular Music -- Jerome Kern and Gershwin and people like that -- Harold Arlen -- the shapes of those things are just gorgeous.

"All The Things You Are" has a gorgeous shape to it and marvelous melody with a great arrival points and surprises. And I think they're terrific models for -- both for composition and for improvisation. So, I just think they're beautifully put together and they shouldn't be forgotten.

And they have influenced -- the tunes have actually influenced my playing and influenced my writing.

GROSS: Pat Metheny, you don't do songs as much, like standard songs from the repertoire.

METHENY: You know, it's funny, I kind of grew up playing all those songs, as most guys do, you know. Just because it is such an essential part of the language, and there's sort of no better way to get an understanding, or to develop an understanding of harmony than those songs.

I mean, you know, a song like "All The Things You Are" is just -- like Jim said, it's such a perfect model and its such a great sort of foundation to build things on that, you know, like everybody I started out learning those songs, playing those songs.

The thing with me is that I just haven't recorded that many, mainly because when I started making records I thought OK, well, I'm probably only going to get to make one or two records in my life.

LAUGHTER

METHENY: So...

HALL: ... surprise.

METHENY: I better try to, you know, get my own thing in there and try to develop my own music and my own tunes and all that sort of thing. And now that I look back on having made, you know, I don't know, 20-some records at this point; and I see how little I've really recorded those kinds of songs.

And how in many ways that's the stuff that I know the best because I've played it the longest, you know, I probably do need to spend more time, you know, coming up with ways of playing those songs that I can put on record.

I mean, the thing I like about the way we did both "All The Things You Are" and "Summertime" on this record is that we didn't just play them. We kind of came up with a way of presenting them that's pretty unique actually.

"All The Things You Are" especially just through the improvisational aspect of it, because we just kind of use it as a starting place for -- I don't even know what we did on there. We go all over the place; rhythmically and melodically, harmonically too.

"Summertime," it's pretty -- a pretty different kind of treatment of that tune than I think I've ever did.

GROSS: Well, Pat Metheny, Jim Hall, I want to thank you both very much for talking with us.

HALL: Thank you, Terry.

METHENY: It's been great, Terry. Thanks.

GROSS: Jim Hall and Pat Metheny have a new CD of duets on Telarc Jazz.

This is FRESH AIR.

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Terry Gross, Washington, D.C.
Guest: Jim Hall And Pat Metheny
High: Jazz guitarists Jim Hall and Pat Metheny talk about their recent collaboration on the album "Jim Hall & Pat Metheny." Hall emerged on the jazz scene in the late 1950's and went on to perform with such artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Art Farmer and Itzhak Perlman. Metheny's recording career took off in the 1970's and became so successful that Guitar Player magazine called him the "Jazz Voice of the 80s." This newest recording is being hailed as a cross-generational summit of two exceptional jazz guitarists.
Spec: Entertainment; Music Industry; Lifestyle; Culture; Jim Hall; Pat Metheny

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Jazz Guitar Master's Jim Hall and Pat Metheny

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: JULY 14, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 071402NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Brazil's Answer to the Beatles
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:50

TERRY GROSS, HOST: Brazilian singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso is on his first extended American tour. He has a new CD called "Livro." In Brazil, Veloso has been a major pop star since the 1960s. Music critic Milo Miles went to Caetano's concert in Lowell, Massachusetts on Saturday.

Before we hear his review, let's hear a track from the new CD.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP -- BRAZILIAN SINGER-SONGWRITER CAETANO VELOSO PERFORMING)

MILO MILES, MUSIC CRITIC: It was a wise move to book Caetano Veloso in to the Lowell Memorial Auditorium for only his second performance in the Boston area. The thriving Brazilian community of Lowell ensured that the 3,000-seat hall was more than 80 percent sold out. And sometimes it seemed everyone knew all the words to the 20-plus songs in the two-hour show.

But any non-Brazilian could hear that Caetano Veloso is the child of Bob Dylan, the Beatles and 1960's pop modernism. He simply expects that his songs can be about any subject he chooses; can be frankly literary and can incorporate styles from bossa nova to Afro funk to twelve tone classical.

For a near contemporary of the Beatles, Veloso is remarkably vibrant and forward-looking. His recent album "Livro" is one of the year's richest and most intelligent. Even more remarkable, Veloso and his musical director Jacques Morelenbaum assembled a crack 11-piece band capable of putting all the music across.

Veloso did several of his sweet and catchy oldies with just voice and guitar, otherwise he used four percussionists and a host of drums and rattles to hold everything together in webs of rhythm, the way some American popsters use string sections for harmonic unity.

On the "Livro" album, his young son's song "How Beautiful Could A Being Be" is a cutesy throwaway. In concert, Veloso made it into a captivating showpiece for his band members to show off their dance steps.

Best of all, he took the oddest, most experimental tune from the album, yes, the one that mixes twelve tone classical and dance rhythms, and delivered it so forcefully it became the tune that got people dancing in the aisles.

The rapport between Veloso and his confirmed fans showed the pleasures of playing to the community. But Brazilian pop fans are divided about Veloso, much as North Americans are about classic rock idols.

Some obsessives pour over Veloso's every gesture, every outfit he wears onstage as though these were clues from a sacred text. Others, mostly youngsters, think the old, self-important loudmouth should just fade away.

But for me, seeing Veloso for the first time, I got an inkling of how fans from say Japan feel when they encounter venerable Anglo-American rock stars. I could take what I liked about Veloso's lyricism, appreciate how vibrant his voice was in person.

Unlike Brazilians, I didn't have to deal with his long history, take a life or death stand on him, deal with the weight of being in his fan community. It was fun. A little strange, but fun.

GROSS: Milo Miles is music editor for rock.com Caetano Veloso's new album "Livro" is on the Nonesuch label. He performs in Washington, D.C. tomorrow and in Miami on Saturday.

I'm Terry Gross.

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Terry Gross, Washington, D.C.
Guest: Milo Miles
High: Music critic Milo Miles comments on a recent concert he went to featuring Brazilian pop singer Caetano Veloso. He's currently touring in the United States promoting his new album "Livro" on the Nonesuch label.
Spec: Entertainment; Music Industry; Lifestyle; Culture; Caetano Veloso; Milo Miles

Please note, this is not the final feed of record
Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Brazil's Answer to the Beatles
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.