Zero Tolerance for Silence

Pat Metheny, Pat Metheny & Lyle Mays | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 19, 1994)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Umvd/Ryko
• ASIN: B000008BQO
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #256,408 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not for the faint of heart... or Pat Metheny fans!, February 10, 2005

By 

410 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zero Tolerance for Silence (Audio CD)

It's hard not to be amused by the hysterical (both definitions of the word) reviews that fans write about albums that stray from the expected output of a musician. "Zero Tolerance for Silence", a radical depature from the nonchalant background music usually released by Pat Metheny, elevates the blood pressure of his fans to emergency room levels. This 40 minute solo-guitar noise-fest has the amps turned to 11 and the bird fully flipped. Don't expect melody, harmony, rhythm; this is more about tone color, overtones, abrasive noise and swinging a baseball bat to expectations and convention. Metheny might be sending a big "f***-u, I can do this too," to avant-gardists who regularly disdain his typical output (hard not to respect that) or maybe he's trying to court them.

It is rumored that Thurston Moore persuaded Geffin, Metheny's record company at the time, to release this unpalatable serving at a time when noisy bands like Nirvana were cash-cows. It sounds as if Metheny were trying to pull off his own attempt at Keiji Haino, Sonic Youth, Neil Young's "ARC", or whatever underground noise Thurston Moore was slipping him on the side for inspiration. It's no reference point or high-water mark in the history of voluminous noise-improv, though it is an amusing footnote to 90's commercial music in the wake of its "Alternative" bubble. Knitting Factory has released a 3CD set of insouciant improv that Metheny did with Derek Bailey, Greg Bendian and Paul Wertico-it's also likely to infuriate Metheny fans expecting his usual output.

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creative license to tickle the soul -- the map is not the territory, August 12, 2006

By 

Michael L. Winter "Qabba Fresco" (Madison, WI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Zero Tolerance for Silence (Audio CD)

It's not surprising that there are critics who can't, or at least don't, seem to understand the aesthetic of these pieces (especially someone who claims to have 3 music degrees and might need a 4th). I believe they contain an enormously welcome degree of beauty and freedom -- texturally, rhythmically, melodically, harmonically.

It appears that worship of the conventional is a trap that mauls the possibilities of what exists outside of our limited experiences, and this album is not conventional by any means. Yet there is a convention in this recording which is personal to Pat Metheny, whether it was an intended output, coalesced into abject musical anger in the heat of disgust, or evolved into a perverted joke's punchline.

One doesn't justifiably say that Derek Bailey is full of crap and a musical preschooler, or Eugene Chadbourne is sloppy and doesn't know anything about how to get a decent tone out of an axe. Roscoe Mitchell - Have you ever heard his tirades of notes, the several minutes of all-out circularly breathed otherworldly soprano sax bliss? He's Mick Barr of the reeds. There are others, as well, who are scrutinized under the microscope of convention, yet are masters whose advanced souls holographically express in everything they play; their dynamics, hidden polyrhythms and melodic patterns, musical "accidents."

Pat Metheny, likewise, holds a mastery which derives its own personality, and in that regard, exudes something multidimensional and way deeper than the surface noise that some people can't get beyond. He has, as does anyone, a license to change mind about what convention is, in any given moment, and flow with it, even if it flows backwards.

I think it would be great if Pat Metheny would more frequently offer a recording of equally daring creative expression, to demonstrate his evolution of aesthetic.

It's all there; the perfect beauty in the malformation, the extreme bliss of a frenetic interpretive dance. This album goes where no other goes.

IMHO, those that say it goes in the trash don't seem to get the point.

14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars ohh...eh...kaaay..., May 18, 2005

By 

Patrik Lemberg (Tammisaari Finland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Zero Tolerance for Silence (Audio CD)

I just listened to "Zero Tolerance for Silence" and laughed myself a six-pack. I had no idea Pat Metheny suffered from these kinds of insane nervous breakdowns! ...how is this Pat METHENY!?
...it almost sounds like an outlet of angry energy in addition to all the beautiful music he'd previously made with the Pat Metheny Group and his solo album "Secret Story" which was recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra just before this recording.
...okay, but seriously... (laugh, laugh, laugh) ...the first 18 minutes of the album are just two VERY distorted guitars playing over, under and around each other. There's one in the left channel and one in the right. By panning you can listen to one at a time if you like. This is the case throughout the album, though a third guitar (also distorted) joins for a while later on to add a bit more harmony.
There are no "real" (or usual) forms used here - nothing that comes close to blues or rhythm changes, nor are there any constant tempos or even time meters - this is not music you snap your fingers to.
"Zero Tolerance" displays a TOTALLY different side to Metheny than ANYONE could have EVER imagined. I don't think even a hardcore Metheny-fan could tell that this is him playing. Unusually enough he uses a lot of bending within minor pentatonic and blues lines, and doesn't use a wide range of dynamics - most of his playing here is extremely raw (before and after pictures of his guitar should be displayed.)
I don't blame anyone for thinking this is complete bulls hit because if anything is FAR OUT and EXTREME it would be THIS album...just because I happen to like (or at least appreciate the idea of anyone trying to create) something that is new and different while personal doesn't mean that I think it's an ingenious work of art (hence the three stars.) I cannot swear that this won't, after a lot of listening, someday be one of my favorite albums, but as for now it's way too much information at once to fully appreciate and/or comprehend.
The recording (overdubs 'n' all) was done in one day, and I don't recommend it to people hoping for another "Secret Story."