As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls

Decoding an ambient jazz classic by Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays

It all sounds like a dream, starting with a murmuring crowd and ending on the joyous sounds of playing children.

During our 20-and-a-half-minute journey, we hear an autoharp and a church organ, drum machine beats and tribal percussion, moody keyboard chords and dreamy 12-string guitar lines.

At some point, an enigmatic voice appears over proggy synth strings, counting off seemingly random digits, like a numbers station presenter.

“38, 42, 55, 3…”

cover photo by Klaus Frahm (father of musician Nils Frahm)

Jazz records didn’t sound like that in 1981.

Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays knew that, of course. They deliberately set out to break rules and expand minds.

The two first met at a jazz festival. Apparently making an impression on each other, Metheny would remember Mays two years later when putting together a new fusion band.

Metheny had broken out in the mid-1970s with two gorgeous solo albums on the German jazz label ECM that initially didn’t sell but were critically acclaimed later.

He found commercial success with the Pat Metheny Group, which included pianist Mays. The guitarist’s overflowing virtuosity and the keyboardist’s lyrical precision matched perfectly. Then still in their mid-20s, they would work together for the next three decades.

Among a hectic touring schedule, Metheny and Mays booked themselves into Oslo’s Talent Studio in September 1980. Recording their first duo album for ECM, they would blur the lines between chamber jazz and minimalist composition, taking cues from early ambient and progressive rock.

Released in April 1981, As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls consists of five original compositions. Four of them – the ‘jazzier’ tunes – are on the B-side, among them “September Fifteenth”, a homage to one of Mays’ biggest influences, pianist Bill Evans. The full A-side is taken up by the long suite that gave the album its strange name.

Long before the term ‘ambient jazz’ was even coined, this piece spelt out a melancholic mood over a whole vinyl side, channeling the music of Miles Davis, Steve Reich and Mike Oldfield.

In a podcast commenting on the album, Metheny says: “There was so much thinking about things beyond the jazz tradition, so many stylistic influences to incorporate, so many sonic places to visit.”

Though certain sections were notated in a score, many elements were improvised during the recording, even parts of the orchestration.

And while it does focus on ambience and mood, the piece never favors these aspects over melody and harmony. Metheny and Mays simply saw them as equally important.

As Falls Wichita didn’t just sound revolutionary for its time; it still sounds revolutionary today. Part of it comes down to the technological progress of that era.

“In 1980, it would have only been two years that you could play chords with synths at all”, Mays says. “The technology was starting to get really good. There were new instruments like the Oberheim and the Prophet 5 that had great sounds.”

The role of Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos is not to be understated either, providing rhythmic elements on the ancient-sounding berimbau, shakers and other percussion – most prominently in the middle section, performing against a backbeat programmed by Metheny on an early drum machine.

“As you introduce electronic elements, whether they're synths or drum machines or whatever, somehow my instinct is that you have to balance that with something from the natural world”, Metheny says. “And part of the impulse of getting Nana involved was exactly that. [He] really was sort of the perfect counterpoint to that.”

Mays adds: “Nana (…) did a couple of things that really impressed me. (…) There was another voice telling you something that was in a language that none of us spoke, that was totally coherent, totally riveting. It had its own thread, its own point of view, its own agenda. (…) I still don't know what to make of the section. It doesn't sound like anything I had heard before.”

The last section is a track that Metheny and Mays had originally designed as a concert opener but quickly abandoned. It did not seem to connect with live audiences, but it worked perfectly in the context of this studio composition.

That strange numbers-counting voice provided an element of mystery to that section which has been stimulating listeners’ fantasy ever since.

“The numbers themselves have become a mythological force of their own that we get no end of entertainment value from, in terms of just the different ways people have described those numbers”, Metheny says. “I've gotten letters over the years that range from the hilarious to the just sobering interpretations that people have for what those numbers mean.”

In reality, they should have never ended up on the actual recording. It’s the story of a lucky accident.

Prior to recording overdubs on the end section, which was written out in a score, Lyle Mays laid down the second count in another vocal track, so he always knew exactly where he was.

“Purely by accident in the mix, [ECM producer] Manfred [Eicher] unmuted the track that had my original second count, and the sound of my voice (…) mixed with all of that was so bizarre and so perfect”, Mays recounts. “That was not a designed, deliberate effect. It just happened, and I'm so glad he did it.”

There are other elements on the record that don’t have a deeper meaning but just got thrown in there because Metheny and Mays thought they sounded interesting – like engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug reading the newspaper in Norwegian, or Nana Vasconcelos whistling in the studio.

Mays explains: “What happens in the listener’s mind is that the brain tries to make sense of it and can often come up with a very interesting story, far more interesting than what we might have in mind.”

Which leaves just one last mystery to be solved – where did the strange album title come from? What’s the actual connection between the two cities of Wichita, Kansas, and Wichita Falls, Texas?

First of all, the title was conceived by the musician Steve Swallow, who had played with Metheny in vibraphonist Gary Burton’s band during the mid-1970s. The bass player was known for song titles based on witty wordplay. In the 1960s, he’d written a tune called As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls. It was never recorded.

For Metheny and Mays, the title has two implications: One, they first met at Wichita Jazz Festival in 1975. Two, they had witnessed the horrendous Red River Valley Tornado in Wichita Falls, Texas, on April 10, 1979. Recording the A-side piece for this album, they felt that its build-up and release was mirroring that powerful natural force.

Metheny remembered Swallow’s song title and called him up from the studio to ask permission to use it. That’s how the bassist got a credit on the record sleeve without playing a single note on it.

About the title’s original meaning, Swallow says it was probably just a reference to some old saying, and that he “had nothing particularly notable in mind”.

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Media Diet

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Gorgeous new album on the ever-reliable

quiet details

label. Think a Buddhist monk hitting woodblocks in the early morning mixed with field recordings of the South Korean countryside and shimmering, organic electroacoustic textures. If you just listen to one ambient album this week, make it this one.

Reading: Cosey Fanny Tutti – Art Sex Music (2018)

Cosey was part of Coum Transmissions, a radical performance art group with the late Genesis P-Orridge, and wrote outsider music history with two bands – Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey. Great insights into the 1970s/1980s UK underground and the life of a true legend of alternative culture.

Watching: Luca Guadagnino – The Protagonists (1999)

This was the Italian director’s first movie, a faux documentary about a dark murder case set in early 1990s London. It received quite negative reviews and I can surely see why, but still mainly enjoyed the film due to the two brilliant lead actresses, Tilda Swinton and Fabrizia Sacchi, as well as a stunning opening performance by trip-hop singer Jhelisa Anderson.