The Way Up

The Way Up is an album by the Pat Metheny Group, released in 2005. It won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.

Contents

• Pat metheny 432 the way up part one
• Introduction the way up live
• Track listing
• Personnel
• Songs
• References

The album consists of one 68-minute-long piece, split into four tracks solely for CD navigation. The album is a showcase for the band's ability in solo improvisation and dynamics. Swiss multi-instrumentalist Gregoire Maret joined the Group for the album's recording and tour, being showcased on the harmonica.

The main idea for the piece had been germinating for several years before finally being officially composed and recorded in 2003-04. Metheny has remarked that, The Way Up became a sort of protest song to counter the influence of, in his view, an increasingly impatient, shallow, and simple-minded world.

Because of the album's ambitious nature and demanding studio refining, it was originally not intended to be played live. Both Metheny and Mays remarked on the exhaustive accomplishment of successfully transferring the entire piece to a live setting for the promotional tour.

Certain elements of the composition were influenced by the works of contemporary composer Steve Reich, with whom Pat Metheny has collaborated in the past. Reich is credited on the CD with "very special thanks" along with Eberhard Weber, another musician with whom both Metheny and Mays have collaborated.

As part of the album's promotional tour, the Group performed at the Montreal Jazz Festival and a concert was recorded in South Korea and released on DVD.