Lyle Mays

Anyone who has seen the Pat Metheny Group in concert knows how the brilliant keyboard artistry of Lyle Mays is integral to their sound. While Mays has made his mark in the jazz idiom, he counts Bartok, Stravinsky, Berg, and Ravel among his musical inspirations.

As a key collaborator with Metheny on their multi-Grammy winning albums and record-breaking Pat Metheny Group tours, Mays found the time to step out to feature his own solo work. When he does, as his “Solo “ Improvisations For Expanded Piano” illustrated, Mays stands out as one of the masters of the instrument. While he is capable of keyboard pyrotechnics, Lyle knows just when to ease back and rely on just a melody to create a lyrical ambiance and emotional base.

Born in Wausaukee, Wisconsin, on November 27, 1953, Lyle grew up in a musical environment. His mother played piano and organ, and his father taught himself to play guitar by ear. His music teacher allowed him to practice improvisation after his lessons were completed. Lyle was recognized by his teachers for his exceptional talent and ability. He attended the University of North Texas where he composed and arranged for the One o'clock Lab Band and was the composer and arranger of their highly regarded “Lab '75” album. After leaving the University, Mays joined with Woody Herman's group touring in the US and Europe, for approximately eight months.

In 1975 he met Pat Metheny at the Wichita Jazz Festival and later founded the Pat Metheny Group. Mays composed, orchestrated, and arranged as a core member of the Pat Metheny Group on fourteen albums from 1975 to 2005. He started with the 1977 release “Watercolors”. He played piano, organ, synthesizers, and occasionally trumpet, accordion, agogô bells, autoharp, toy xylophone, and electric guitar. Lyle Mays was a distinctive and integral part of the Pat Metheny Group contributing heavily to their unique style.

Apart from the Metheny group, he recorded or performed in a trio with Marc Johnson (contrabass), Jack DeJohnette (drums), and Peter Erskine (drums). He formed the Lyle Mays Quartet with Marc Johnson or Eric Hochberg (contrabass), Mark Walker (drums), and Bob Sheppard (saxophone). Naxos Germany released the quartet’s live album “The Ludwigsburg Concert” recorded in 1993 and released in 2015. His collaborations included a diverse set of musicians such as Joni Mitchell, Earth Wind & Fire, Bobby McFerrin, Toots Thielemans, and Eberhard Weber.

He was regarded by both professional musicians and music fans as one of the most innovative and creative contemporary jazz pianists. Mays was even more serious about classical music in terms of advanced harmonic aesthetics. He composed several contemporary classical pieces, such as "Twelve Days in the Shadow of a Miracle", recorded in 1996 by the Debussy Trio. Mays also composed “Distance” for the Pat Metheny Group’s Grammy-winning album, “Still Life”, "Mindwalk" in 2009 for marimba player, Nancy Zeltsman, and “Street Dreams 3” for his solo album, Street Dreams with prominent classical performers in New York City.

Throughout his career, Mays collaborated with prominent electronic keyboard instrument makers, Kurzweil and Korg. He aided development with new sounds as he had great knowledge of both computer programming and music synthesis that were mostly self-taught.

Mays also composed and recorded children's audio books, such as “East of the Sun”, “West of the Moon”, “Moses the Lawgiver”, “The Lion and the Lamb”, “The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher”, and “Tale of Peter Rabbit” with text read by Meryl Streep. In 1985, Metheny's and Mays's compositions were performed by the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago in the critically-acclaimed production of Orphans by Lyle Kessler. May's Oberheim analog synth and his voice counting the recording session, which can be heard from the bridge part of "As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls," was used for Christian Dior's Fahrenheit fragrance commercials from 1988 to 2016.

Pat Metheny is a prolific touring artist having built a large fan base in the Americas, Europe and Asia. After the release of the final Pat Metheny Group album, 2005’s This Way Up, Mays began to retreat from the stresses of the music world. As Metheny put it on his Facebook page recently, the grind of touring that was expected of any working jazz musician wore on Mays. “The lifestyle of going out on the road night after night,” Metheny wrote, “for sometimes hundreds of nights at a time, is not for everyone and has real challenges ... . We did a brief round of gigs a while back, and it was clear in every way that he had had enough of hotels, buses, and so forth.”

Mays quietly lived out the rest of his days in Southern California. He passed away on February 10, 2020, at Adventist Hospital in Simi Valley, California.

Though he has branched out and recorded solo albums and numerous projects, Mays is most strongly associated with the Pat Metheny Group. However, a close review of his genius-level talent reveals a surprising depth of work. Lyle Mays shines as one of the influential piano players of our time. Source: Michael Wieskamp

Awards

Grammy Award, Composing/Arranging - Best Instrumental Composition "Eberhard", 2022