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About Sean Fenlon and this site

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I guess that, for the most part, “About Us” is more accurately “About Me.” It’s just that, “About Me” just didn’t seem to be an appropriate label for a page on a Pat Metheny Website.

Sean Fenlon with Pat Metheny

In any case, my name is Sean Fenlon, and I am a huge admirer of Pat Metheny and his art. I was first introduced to the music of Pat Metheny while I was studying composition with Hank Levy at Towson University from 1987 to 1989, when Hank played me the North Texas State One O’Clock Lab Band’s arrangement of “First Circle.” I later attended The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, where I completed my doctoral dissertation, The Exotic Rhythms of Don Ellis. While preparing for this dissertation, I had the opportunity to phone interview Pat Metheny about Don Ellis’s influence on Metheny and his own musical language. The interview lasted hours. I was blown away by the depth of his musical knowledge and the passion he brings to his art. Metheny remembered me years later when I introduced myself to him after one of his concerts at Lisner Auditorium in Washington DC.

Pat Metheny has had a remarkable influence on my own musical language. I have closely assimilated Metheny’s approach to rhythm in my own jazz-influenced compositions. I hope that the information contained within this site ultimately encourages even greater awareness of the life and art of Pat Metheny.

Please feel free to contact me directly to discuss Pat Metheny or the information contained on this website.

About this edition of the site

PatMethenyMusic.com is an independent fan site written by Sean Fenlon since 2005. Sean launched it in 2005, redesigned and relaunched it in 2014 around Kin (←→), and rebuilt it in 2026 as a faster archive, centered on Front Row, a timeline that begins with Sean’s 1994 CompuServe emails with Pat and runs through the concerts he has attended since 1997. The conversation that started on CompuServe in 1994 has continued, on and off, by email ever since.

  • Independent. This is a fan site. It is not affiliated with Pat Metheny, his management, his labels or his publishers. For official news and tour dates, go to patmetheny.com.
  • No ads. Some book and album links go to Amazon. Videos and players come only from Pat Metheny’s official channels, plus one short backstage clip from Sean’s own YouTube channel. Nothing loads from YouTube, Vimeo, Spotify or Apple until you press play.
  • Photos. Concert photos come from Sean’s own archive unless a Wikimedia Commons credit says otherwise (full credits). Any photo restored or upscaled with AI tools is labeled “AI-restored”. Restoration only, nothing added or invented.
  • Sources. Facts about releases and tours link to their source, usually Pat Metheny’s official site.

Privacy

This site uses Google Analytics and Cloudflare Web Analytics to count visits. No ads.

  • Google Analytics 4 records page views and basic device and location information, and sets first-party cookies. Google does not log or store visitors’ IP addresses in GA4. The data is used only to see which pages people read.
  • Cloudflare Web Analytics counts visits without cookies.
  • Embedded players from YouTube, Vimeo, Spotify, Apple and SoundCloud load nothing until you press play. YouTube videos use its privacy-enhanced (no-cookie) mode.
  • Amazon links are plain links; nothing from Amazon loads on this site.
  • There are no comment forms, accounts or newsletter sign-ups.

Questions, corrections or a rights concern? See the contact page.