A Tribute to Lyle Mays 1953-2020

You can read the story of what Pat and Lyle's music meant to me... down below. Also, please subscribe to my channel, I have new music coming out soon. Copyright information: This song, "The Search" by the Pat Metheny Group from the album "American Garage.". Written by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays. I do not own the copyright for this song. ℗© 1979 ECM Records GmbH, under exclusive license to Universal Music Classics & Jazz - a division of Universal Music GmbH

Yesterday, Monday, February 10th, one of my musical heroes Lyle Mays passed away. He was my favorite keyboardist from my favorite group, The Pat Metheny Group. He influenced my music, he was the person I tried to pattern a lot of my piano and synthesizer stylings and sounds after. People have commented on some of my piano work, mentioning how they could hear the Lyle Mays influence in it. As a life-long musician, I can't say enough about what Lyle meant to me and I know, my son Jordan, who is an up and coming keyboardist, also felt the same way as I did about him. We are mourning his loss this morning yet, we are deeply grateful for the gift of music that he brought to the world and we're grateful for all the years that we listened and enjoyed everything he did. My wife and I had one of Lyle's songs played before our wedding back in 1984, if that tells you anything about how we felt about their music. I was privileged to be able to see them live during the Offramp tour in 1982. The musical magic created by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays (not to forget the contributions of Steve Rodby) was some of the most profound and impacting music in the world of jazz for the last 40 years. 15 Grammy nominations and 11 awards. I can't imagine how many thousands of people have been touched by the music Lyle created or was a part of. One of the first songs I heard from Pat and Lyle... I was on an airplane, flying to Europe back in 1981. It was a direct flight from San Francisco to Germany. A 13 hour flight that took us up over the Arctic Circle. During that flight, there was a music loop that was one hour long and it played 13 times during that flight. I listened through the loop the first time and there was one song by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays and it was the last song in the loop. The song "The Search" from their album American Garage. I tired to get back to my seat 5 minutes before the hour so I could hear that song every time it played and it resonated in my head through the entire flight as I looked out over the stunning images of earth and the frozen sea. Needless to say I went home and bought the record - one of my all time favorites. This song featured Lyle on piano and Oberheim synthesizer. Later on I bought an Oberheim synthesizer (the sound featured on this song) and used it on many recordings I produced for myself and others. So today I will pray for the repose of the soul of Lyle Mays, I will pray for his family and friends who knew him and reflect on what a blessing it was to have known his music. We are saddened beyond words at the news of his passing and wish you all a day of peace. Here's that first song that impacted me so deeply.. Thanks Lyle for all the music. Updating this in 2023, I should mention that over the past couple of years, I've been fortunate to be producing music with one of Lyle's close friends on keyboards... Pat Coil. Lyle produced Pat's album; Schemes and Dreams, (along with Steve Rodby). It is highly recommended for any Lyle fan. I also just joined a Lyle Mays Fanpage which can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/18073...