Pat Metheny, Side-Eye III+ Review

by Jeff Becker

Pat Metheny’s first two Side-Eye projects centered on the excitement and freedom of guitar-led trio interaction, pairing the guitarist with younger improvisers who came of age inside Metheny’s musical language. With Side-Eye III+, Metheny expands that premise into something broader. The core trio dialogue remains central, but it now unfolds within a wider ensemble palette that includes harp, percussion, and choral textures. As in much of the Pat Metheny Group’s music, Metheny’s guitar remains the primary narrative voice, while the surrounding ensemble colors deepen the atmosphere around it.

Even as Side-Eye III+ expands Metheny’s ensemble palette, the album’s rhythmic identity still grows from the in-the-pocket, driving pulse that has long powered his most compelling groups. The interaction between Metheny, drummer Joe Dyson, and percussionist Luis Conte forms the album’s rhythmic center of gravity. This is a dialogue that continually shapes the feel without ever distracting from the forward momentum.

Metheny treats the rhythm section as an equal voice. From the buoyant propulsion of the Pat Metheny Group to the conversational intimacy of his smaller ensembles, rhythm in his music tends to function as a living framework, adapting in real time to melodic and improvisational developments. Side-Eye III+ continues that lineage. Dyson and Conte create a layered rhythmic environment that allows Metheny’s guitar to move freely within, leaning with and against the pulse for emphasis.

That dynamic becomes clear immediately in the opening of “In On It.” Dyson establishes a fluid sixteenth-note drive, the beat moving with smooth, quietly insistent momentum. Beneath that motion, Conte threads in hand percussion that deepens the texture without crowding it. Metheny responds by aligning his phrasing closely with the current of the beat, short melodic figures locking into the pattern before gradually widening into longer lines as the improvisation unfolds. The effect is one of expanding space, with the guitar riding the band’s internal engine.

A different kind of elasticity emerges in “Urban and Western.” Set at a medium-slow tempo, the piece opens into a notably spacious pocket, allowing the ensemble to breathe between phrases. Around the midway mark, Metheny’s solo leans into blues-inflected triplet phrasing, gently letting a repeated figure move against the broader pulse. Dyson’s cymbal work and Conte’s percussion accent these shifts as the rhythm section lets the feel stretch and flex. Metheny shapes lines that hover between straight subdivision and rolling triplet motion to create a pocket that feels wide and pliable, but with a held center.

The opening of “Risk and Reward” reveals another facet of this rhythmic dialogue. The piece begins in a more textural, layered space, with harp, piano, and guitar weaving a delicate harmonic fabric. As the ensemble settles into a warm bass foundation, Dyson introduces gently circulating cymbal patterns while Conte adds soft percussive color around the edges of the beat. When Metheny enters the improvisational section, the rhythm section increases its activity with his playing arc. Motion builds, with Dyson expanding activity across the kit and Conte thickening the percussive undercurrent. What begins as a calm, rhythmic landscape slowly gathers momentum, producing a subtle but unmistakable lift in ensemble energy as the improvisation develops.

Throughout the album, the bass role, shared between Jermaine Paul and Daryl Johns, provides the grounding low end that supports these interactions. Each player’s style defines a rhythmic personality of Side-Eye III+. Supporting the core interactive triangle formed by guitar, drums, and percussion.

The result is a rhythmic language that is instinctive within the album’s expanded orchestration of choir, harp, keyboards, and layered ensemble writing. The pulse retains the organic responsiveness of a working trio, where time is not fixed but continually shaped by musicians listening and reacting to one another in real time. The ensemble interactions are a collective meditation on Metheny’s musical language. The identifiable language lets multiple voices speak at once while orbiting a melodic center that holds everything together.

On Side-Eye III+, rhythm preserves the vitality of Metheny’s small-group language, while the expanded ensemble reveals how that language can be reframed through a broader orchestral palette. In many ways, the textural role once carried by Lyle Mays’ expansive keyboard orchestrations in the Pat Metheny Group is redistributed across the spectrum of instrumental and vocal colors. Rather than relying on a single keyboard voice to shape atmosphere and harmonic depth, Metheny surrounds the core trio with additional timbres that extend the music’s expressive range.

Harp, percussion, and wordless vocals form a layered sound world that flows cinematically, expanding the music’s harmonic field without clouding its clarity. On “SE-O,” this expanded palette becomes especially striking. The added textures, particularly the wordless male voice, move above the groove, creating a luminous thread through the ensemble. The effect lends the piece an almost spiritual lift, deepening the atmosphere that surrounds Metheny’s melodic lines while allowing the rhythmic foundation to remain clearly defined.

The romantic, folk-inflected character of “Our Old Street” demonstrates how effectively these colors shape the emotional arc of Metheny’s writing. As the piece unfolds, the middle section gradually rises toward Metheny’s nylon-string guitar solo. Subtle choral textures begin to emerge, their warm tones filling the space between harp and keyboard layers. The ensemble never overwhelms the moment; instead, it quietly frames the intimacy of the composition, reinforcing the music’s tender, reflective mood.

A different use of ensemble color appears in “Don’t Look Down,” where the core trio energy comes to the foreground. Here, harp accents interact with the piano and keyboard figures, particularly during the piece’s dramatic transitions. In these moments, the harp and choir function as framing devices. When a chordal rhythmic figure arrives, it announces Metheny’s rich jazz-box guitar-toned solo. During his solo, the surrounding textures heighten the drama. Letting the solo feel grounded and illuminated as the ensemble’s colors amplify its emotional impact with the clarity of the trio at the center.

Side-Eye III+ stands as a compelling expression of Metheny’s long-running musical language. The project preserves the conversational vitality of his small-group work while embracing a broader orchestral imagination. The expanded ensemble refracts Metheny’s melodic voice through the colors of harp, choir, percussion, and layered keyboards/piano. Throughout the album, the compositions are shaped with interactions of ensemble textures around Metheny’s unmistakable guitar sound. Within his vast discography, Side-Eye III+ emerges as a clean example of Metheny’s core musical sound. A project that honors Metheny’s collaborative ethos while expanding the sonic horizons of the Side-Eye concept, while keeping his unmistakable guitar voice at the center of an ever-widening musical landscape.