Transcript for the Piece Audio version of The Orchestrion: Pat Metheny's One-Man Band

JD: I REMEMBER AS A CHILD VISITING CLARK TRADING POST IN New Hampshire and being transfixed by an instrument that looked a like a player piano except it had a glass pane and inside were drums and cymbals that played as if by phantom spirits.

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JD: That was an orchestrion, a mechanical orchestra that flourished in the 19th and early 20th century. But now I'm in a decommissioned church in Brooklyn with a giant modern day version of that instrument that stretches about 25 feet long and 12 feet high with drums, robot guitars, jug organs, marimba, vibes, piano and more. And standing in the middle is guitarist Pat Metheny.

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JD: in a mix of the antique concepts and computer technology, Metheny has designed his own Orchestrion.

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JD: He says it's something he's wanted to do since he was a child and operated his grandfather's player piano.

PM: I was only like eight. Cousin Tommy would pump one pedal, and I would pump the other, and we would just try every role there was.

JD: Originally, the orchestrion was a player piano turned into an ensemble. Metheny saw his first one near where he grew up in Missouri

PM: ....there was a pizza parlor in Kansas City that had one, and I remember saying, “Wow, a bass drum and a cymbal!” And I remember thinking even then, like, well, why couldn’t it go some hip cymbal patterns? Why does it just have to go “Chhhh.”

JD: On his album, orchestrion, pat metheny makes it do more than that.

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JD: While the original orchestrions were clunky and mechanical, Pat Metheny's sound like.... the Pat Metheny Group. David Oakes is Metheny's longtime technical engineer.

DO: I was outside the room, and I heard music playing, and I knew it was Pat, but I couldn’t think of what record it was from. So I walk in to hear what record it is, and it’s all the instruments playing. It actually sounded like real people all of a sudden,

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JD: Pat Metheny insists he isn't out to replace his band.

PM: This is sort of like a look into my brain in a way, because every little thing about it is my thing, and there you go. That’s the way it is.

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JD: You can hear Pat Metheny Orchestrion to full effect on his album, Orchestrion. He'll be touring America with it in the spring. I'm John Diliberto and this has been an Echo Location, Soundings for New Music.

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