Lyle Mays

Lyle Mays

born on 27/11/1953 in Wausakee, WI, United States

died on 10/2/2020 in Los Angeles, CA, United States

Lyle Mays

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Lyle David Mays (born November 27, 1953) is an American jazz pianist and composer best known as a member of the Pat Metheny Group.[1][2] Metheny and Mays composed and arranged nearly all of the group's music, for which Mays has won eleven Grammy Awards.[3]

Biography

While growing up, Mays had four main interests: chess, mathematics, architecture, and music. His parents were musically inclined – his mother was a pianist, his father was a guitarist – and he was able to study the piano with the help of instructor Rose Barron. She allowed Mays the opportunity to practice improvisation after the structured elements of the lesson were completed. At age 9 he played organ at a family member's wedding, and at age 14 he began to play organ in church.[4] In summer camp he was introduced to important jazz artists.[3]

Bill Evans' album Live in Montreux and Miles Davis' album Filles de Kilimanjaro were important influences on his formation as a jazz musician. He graduated from the University of North Texas after attending the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.[5][6][7] He composed and arranged for the One O'Clock Lab Band and was the composer and arranger of Grammy-nominated album Lab 75.[8]

After leaving North Texas, Mays toured with Woody Herman's group for approximately eight months. In 1974, he met Pat Metheny with whom he later founded the Pat Metheny Group. Mays has won eleven Grammy Awards with the Pat Metheny Group and has been nominated for four others for his own work.[9]

In an interview with JAZZIZ magazine in 2016, Mays revealed his current career as a software manager.[10]

Work

In the Pat Metheny Group, Mays provides arrangements, orchestration, and the harmonic and metric backbone of the group's musical signature. He occasionally performs on electric guitar as well. He played trumpet on the songs "Forward March" and "Yolanda You Learn" from the album First Circle (1984) and during the tour for that album.[3]

His albums as a leader reflect a variety of interests. Lyle Mays and Street Dreams build on the content of the Pat Metheny Group, while Fictionary is a straight-ahead jazz trio session featuring fellow North Texan Marc Johnson on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums.

He has also composed and recorded music for children's records, such as Tale of Peter Rabbit, with text read by Meryl Streep.[3]

The Steppenwolf Theater Company of Chicago featured an assortment of compositions by Lyle Mays and Pat Metheny for their production of Lyle Kessler's play Orphans.[11]

He has composed classical music such as "Twelve Days in the Shadow of a Miracle", a piece for harp, flute, viola, and synthesizer (recorded in 1996 by the Debussy Trio).[12]

Instruments

Mays plays a Steinway Grand Piano with built-in MIDI. He has used an Oberheim 8 Voice Synth, a Sequential Circuits Prophet 5, Kurzweil K250, Korg DW-8000, Korg Triton keyboards, and many more.

Select discography

Solo

  • Lyle Mays (Geffen, 1986)
  • Street Dreams (Geffen, 1988)
  • Fictionary (Geffen, 1993)
  • Solo: Improvisations for Expanded Piano (Warner Bros., 2000)
  • The Ludwigsburg Concert (Naxos, 2016)

Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays

  • As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls (1981, ECM)

Pat Metheny Group

Pat Metheny

  • Watercolors (ECM, 1977)
  • Secret Story (Geffen, 1992)

As sideman

  • The Sound of the Wasp, Phil Wilson (ASI, 1975)
  • Home, Steve Swallow (ECM, 1979)
  • Shadows and Light, Joni Mitchell (Asylum, 1980)
  • Later That Evening, Eberhard Weber (ECM, 1982)
  • When Elephants Dream of Music, Bob Moses (Gramavision, 1982)
  • Girl at Her Volcano, Rickie Lee Jones (Warner Bros., 1983)
  • Contemplación, Pedro Aznar (Tabriz, 1984)
  • Mrs. Soffel, film soundtrack, released on Film Music, Mark Isham (Windham Hill, 1985)
  • Betty Buckley, Betty Buckley (Rizzoli, 1986)
  • The Story of Moses, Bob Moses (Gramavision, 1987)
  • "Heritage", Earth, Wind & Fire (Columbia, 1990)
  • Medicine Music, Bobby McFerrin (EMI, 1990)
  • Premonition, Paul McCandless (Windham Hil, 1991l)
  • Live in Warsaw (1976), Woody Herman (Storyville, 1992)
  • Falling Out, Igor Butman (Impromptu, 1994)
  • Points of View, Nando Lauria (Narada, 1994)
  • Noa, Noa (Geffen, 1994)
  • East Coast West Coast, Toots Thielemans (Private Music, 1994)
  • Schemes and Dreams, Pat Coil (Sheffield Lab, 1994)
  • Fifteen Year Anniversary, Betty Buckley (K.O., 2000)

See also

References

  1. ^ "NTSU Lab Band Record on Sale". Denton Record-Chronicle. October 2, 1974. p. 22. Retrieved December 5, 2014 – via Newspapers.com. 
  2. ^ "Grammy Nomination to Lab Band Album". The Courier-Gazette. January 30, 1976. p. 2. Retrieved December 5, 2014 – via Newspapers.com. 
  3. ^ a b c d "UNT Division of Jazz Studies". University of North Texas. Retrieved March 19, 2010. 
  4. ^ "LYLE MAYS". JazzMusicArchives.com. Retrieved November 12, 2017. 
  5. ^ "The State: Telephone directory for Baldwin and Woodville, Wisconsin: electronic facsimile: Browse Text". Digicoll.library.wisc.edu. Retrieved November 12, 2017. 
  6. ^ "UNT alumnus Lyle Mays to serve as guest artist in February - North Texan". Northtexan.unt.edu. Retrieved November 12, 2017. 
  7. ^ "Really Good Music". Reallygoodmusic.com. Retrieved November 12, 2017. 
  8. ^ "February 2006 - Division of Jazz Studies". Jazz.unt.edu. Retrieved November 12, 2017. 
  9. ^ "Grammy Award Winners". www2.grammy.com. Retrieved March 19, 2010. 
  10. ^ "Lyle Mays". JAZZIZ Magazine. Retrieved September 23, 2016. 
  11. ^ "THEATER: Steppenwolf presents 'Orphans'". The New York Times. Retrieved August 16, 2013. 
  12. ^ "Twelve Days In The Shadow Of A Miracle Sheet Music By Lyle Mays - Sheet Music Plus". Sheetmusicplus.com. Retrieved November 12, 2017. 

External links

This page was last modified 28.07.2018 01:51:15

This article uses material from the article Lyle Mays from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and it is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.