Daily Video: Pat Metheny - "Cherish"

We wouldn't immediately think that the old 60's chestnut "Cherish" would lend itself to the type of skilled reworking that virtuouso jazz guitarist Pat Metheny would bring to bear but, of course, we were dead wrong. Taken from his new solo album What's It All About, just out today via Nonesuch, the Association classic is an understated wonder of graceful melody embedded in the chord shadings. Watch a master at work. Metheny's comments on "Cherish" (and another video) after the jump...

"People are often surprised to hear that this is one of the first songs I ever learned, but any beginning guitar student knows about the dreaded "F" chord; the first time you are asked to "barre" two strings together with one finger," says Metheny. "For me, in that first week of playing the instrument, it was impossible to make my fingers do that. But by leaving the top string open and not doing the barre, you wind up with an F major seventh chord, which somehow I recognized as being the first chord of the tune I had just heard Astrud Gilberto sing with Stan Getz on TV around that time. I actually liked it better than the straight "F" chord anyway!"

Pat Metheny - "Cherish" (from What's It All About)