Lyle Mays

Lyle David Mays (November 27, 1953 – February 10, 2020) Metheny and Mays composed and arranged nearly all of the group’s music, for which Mays won eleven Grammy Awards. His teacher allowed him to practice improvisation after the structured elements of the lesson were completed. At the age of nine, he played the organ at a family member’s wedding, and at fourteen he began to play in church. Bill Evans at the Montreux Jazz Festival and Filles de Kilimanjaro by Miles Davis (both recorded in 1968) were important influences. He attended the University of North Texas after transferring from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. He composed and arranged for the One O’Clock Lab Band and was the composer and arranger for the Grammy Award-nominated album Lab 75. After leaving the University of North Texas, Mays toured in the US and Europe with Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd (big band) for approximately eight months. In 1975, he met Pat Metheny at the Wichita Jazz Festival and soon afterward they co-founded the Pat Metheny Group. Mays served as pianist, keyboardist, sound designer, and a core contributing composer for the group over its entire thirty-three-year existence. The group was nomi