Lyle Mays - a revisionist history

So I have been a Pat Metheny fan/obsessive since my late teens, I absolutely love Metheny's music but I've gone on a journey in the last ten years I think, in appreciating Lyle Mays and his incredible contribution to the Pat Metheny Group - I've reached that point were I think I actually refer to this era of Metheny as Metheney/Mays - I in all honesty cannot think that the heyday of Metheny would have been possible without Lyle Mays, he's that critical to the compositional and innovation that marks the best of Pat's work.

In that sense I really mourn his passing at such a young age, I think he is an enormous loss to music.