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25 / PAT METHENY
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INDEX Facts compiled by the editors of Harper’s Magazine
Q: A random question: you’ve crafted a zillion albums as a leader, recorded as part of other musician and vocalist sessions. Do you feel as if you’ve ever made a misstep—a false or wrong move, obviously thinking in hindsight? A: I probably wouldn’t have put “Forward March” as the first track on First Circle. Q: Back to the new album, how did it evolve—and so richly—from the all the gigs you guys did before Carmassi joined the fold? You guys didn’t sound so rich, as you do on the new album, yet I dare not think that bringing in Carmassi changed the sound so much. How did you come to use him in the first place? A: To do what I wanted to do I knew I needed to expand the palette by adding another musician. However, I didn’t want to alter the incredible dynamic of the quartet. What I really needed was a good musician who could play a lot of parts. I needed someone to kind of fill out the sound of the band; I didn’t really need another soloist, especially with Chris Potter standing right there, but I did need someone who understands the language that we’re dealing in and can contribute in a textural way and give me another voice to write for. He’s doing fine in that role for this band. Probably at least as significant or more so to the difference in this record to the one before, was my decision to do so much electronics and Orchestrionic stuff. I usually haven’t done that in these types of settings. Q: What came first in regard to the new album—the idea of grander orchestration for this material, or the conviviality of being an equal part of the whole, if you are indeed an equal part of the fold in your opinion? A: It was the idea of reconciling the richer harmonic language that I’ve developed on projects like Secret Story or my regular group stuff or even Orchestrion with this slamming quartet sitting right in the middle of it all. And also responding to the inspiration that I got from all the touring we did together last year and to try to push it further. Q: There are several shades at work on the new album. What composition or jam came first and how did it wind up defining where the rest of the sessions related to the album would go? A: “Jam” is probably not a word that comes to mind. The compositional aspect of this record is probably near the top of the priority list. I came into the studio with hundreds of pages of written music for everyone. However, for me the relationship that composition has to improvisation is a very interesting and endlessly fascinating dance— there’s no reason that they need to be mutually incompatible even taken in large measure. That’s also an undercurrent of the new record. Q: Age is but a number, but between 150 and 250 gigs a year—your norm at any age is ball breaking. How has age affected the playing, the desire to gig more? A: Compared to most people—I would say schoolteachers, paramedics, police and firemen and women and many many other occupations—doing what I do is nothing. I feel privileged and lucky to get the opportunity to play a lot. I take it very seriously and try to make every concert as if it is the last time I’ll ever get to play. I’ve been doing this since I was really young—my metabolism is sort of geared to do it. ■
Percentage change in the S&P 500 since its pre-crisis peak: +8 In the price of financial stocks: –44 Portion of wages paid in Manhattan that come from the financial-services industry: 1/3 Percentage by which New York City’s homeless-shelter population has increased under Mayor Michael Bloomberg: 65 Portion of the city’s shelter population who are children: 2/5 Percentage of black U.S. children under the age of five who live in poverty: 43 Portion of U.S. foster children who will experience homelessness by age twenty-six: 1/3 Percentage of Americans who think children are better off when their mothers stay at home rather than working: 51 When their fathers stay at home rather than working: 8 Median age of a U.S. woman giving birth for the first time: 25.7 Getting married for the first time: 26.5 Estimated amount spent globally on fertility drugs and devices this year: $4,054,984,000 Percentage of first-time fertility treatments that fail: 75 Portion of U.S. births from unintended pregnancies that are paid for by Medicaid: 2/3 Percentage change in the portion of uninsured young adults in Massachusetts since the state’s health-care reform: –67 Portion of U.S. college graduates who say their job does not require a college degree: 2/5 (see page 14) Percentage of 2012 U.S. law-school graduates not currently in full-time jobs requiring membership in the bar: 43 Portion of hyperlinks included in Supreme Court decisions that no longer work: 1/2 Minimum percentage of all federal background checks handled by the Office of Personnel Management: 90 Percentage of OPM employees who are private contractors: 76 Percentage of Pentagon background checks sampled by the GAO that were processed with insufficient information: 87 Percentage increase in “employee misconduct” at the TSA between 2010 and 2012: 26 Cartons of cigarettes the ATF lost during a botched sting operation last year: 2,100,000 Estimated chances that a recent crack cocaine or methamphetamine user is not physically addicted to the drug: 4 in 5 Minimum number of retired California public servants receiving pensions of more than $100,000 a year: 21,874 Percentage of rentable property in San Diego County that registered-sex-offender parolees are prohibited from living on: 97 Portion of men in China who say they have raped a woman: 1/5 Percentage of those men who said they did it because they were bored or wanted to have fun: 57 Percentage of flights out of Beijing’s Capital International Airport that have left on time this year: 27 Portion of Tajikistan’s GDP that is composed of migrant remittances: 1/2 Kilowatt-hours of energy used each year by the average Ethiopian citizen: 52 By the average U.S. refrigerator: 454 Amount the Canadian Armed Forces spends each year on weight-loss surgery for obese soldiers: $220,000 Replacement cost of the munitions used by the U.S. military in the first nine days of its intervention in Libya: $259,200,000 Percentage change from 2002 to 2012 in the amount the United States spent on “security assistance” to other countries: +227 Percentage of U.S. Jews who believe God gave Israel to the Jewish people: 40 Percentage of white U.S. evangelicals who do: 82 Portion of U.S. Jews with Christmas trees in their homes: 1/3 Estimated profit an Illinois zoo has earned since 2008 by selling tree ornaments made of reindeer droppings: $50,000 Index Sources 1,2 S&P Dow Jones Indices (N.Y.C.); 3 New York State Department of Labor (Albany); 4,5 Coalition for the Homeless (N.Y.C.); 6 Children’s Defense Fund (Washington); 7 Amy Dworsky, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago; 8,9 Pew Research Center (Washington); 10,11 National Marriage Project, University of Virginia (Charlottesville); 12 Transparency Market Research (Pune, India); 13 International Committee Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technologies (Palo Alto, Calif.); 14 Guttmacher Institute (N.Y.C.); 15 The Urban Institute (Washington); 16 Gallup, Inc. (Washington); 17 National Association for Law Placement (Washington); 18 Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard Law School (Cambridge, Mass.); 19 U.S. Office of Personnel Management; 20–22 U.S. Government Accountability Office; 23 U.S. Department of Justice; 24 Carl Hart, Columbia University (N.Y.C.); 25 Harper’s research; 26 California Attorneys for Criminal Justice (Santa Barbara); 27,28 Partners for Prevention (Bangkok); 29 FlightStats (Portland, Ore.); 30,31 World Bank (Washington); 32 Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (Washington); 33 Canadian Forces Health Services (Ottawa); 34 Congressional Research Service (Washington); 35 Stimson Center (Washington); 36–38 Pew Research Center (Washington); 39 Miller Park Zoological Society (Bloomington, Ill.). W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / I C O N D V ■ W W W . I C O N D V . C O M ■ M A R C H 2 0 1 4 ■ I C O N ■ 41