Back when I was looking up more about orchestrions, I stumbled across a written teaser for Pat Metheny’s upcoming Orchestrion Tour. Reminiscing about the automatic instruments he saw as a child, he wanted to create a “modern” orchestrion and take it on tour with him. Well, there is a video now, and with the folks from LEMUR, he’s got a prototype. It appears to play run-of-the-mill smooth jazz, which is disappointing for some commenters over at Create Digital Music, but I am definitely impressed by the abilities of these contraptions at making something actually sound somewhat “smooth” (even if that wouldn’t be my genre of choice either). That said, I agree with the commenter over there who wants these robots to do more than play smooth jazz; maybe after some live action, Metheny will let them take advantage of their robot capabilities more thoroughly.

Are we about to enter some crazy world where I actually want Pat Metheny tickets?

(via Create Digital Music)