Q&A with Pat Metheny: ‘Every chance I get to play is a privilege’

For over four decades, legendary jazz guitarist Pat Metheny has been performing all over the world.

His recent tour, “An Evening with Pat Metheny,” will make a stop in Columbus at the RiverCenter for Performing Arts. The concert features some of his favorite music performed with an ensemble of friends.

Metheny recently corresponded with Sunday Arts reporter Carrie Beth Wallace to discuss the new tour, how he chose the artists appearing on stage with him and how much he’s enjoying the ride.

Here are excerpts from that interview edited for length and clarity.

Q: Your website mentions that this tour directly follows a bit of a touring sabbatical for you. It was the first time you’ve taken time off from touring since 1994. How did this time off enrich your music? How has it been to return to the stage?

A: Yes, in 2014 I was on the road for almost 200 days, but in 2015 I only did four or five gigs. It was great to be home so much. Actually, that was probably the most time I was consistently in one place since high school. I can see why people like civilian life. But this past year I was back to being very active. To me, every chance I get to play is a privilege.

Q: How did you spend the time off? Did you have any remarkable experiences that informed or inspired your new tour?

A: Even my “off year” was pretty busy — I put out three albums and did a few fairly major things like being the artist in residence for the Detroit Jazz Festival. So, everything is a bit relative — it wasn’t 150 concerts around the world, but it also wasn’t a trip on a desert island either. I have three kids at home — the best part was just getting to hang out a lot more consistently with them.

Q: This tour, “An Evening with Pat Metheny,” covers a very wide range of your repertoire. Has it been fun to put together such a variety of music for this production? How have you chosen the three artists who you share the stage with this time around?

A: This is a bit of an unusual thing for me. The standard thing for quite some years now has been write some music, make a record and do a tour. But actually, I didn’t use to do it that way. When I started, I would often tour for a long time before I recorded the music. This time I decided I would find some favorite musicians who I knew could hang with me in the territory that I kind of inhabit at this point in time and sort of see where it goes. I have written a bunch of music for them, but we can also play everything from every step of my thing along the way — in fact they play it all great. So it is an exciting thing for me.

Regarding the musicians playing with me, I can’t ever say enough about Antonio. As I often say, he is the drummer I thought would never be born. He has certainly been my most important collaborator over these past 15 years or so. I feel like he can contribute to almost any project I launch. And again, his personal maturity and lack of personal drama is a huge thing for me — he shows up to play every night. He is one of the best musicians I have ever known and is really one of the all time greats on his instrument. I love playing with Antonio.

For about 10 years now I have had my eye on Gwiylm Simcock. He is one of the most talented pianists to emerge in a long time in my opinion. And he shares something with another one of my favorite piano players, Brad Mehldau, in that both he and Brad claim to have been very inspired to take up this music from hearing some of my records as young kids. Gwilym has a really deep understanding of the sensibility of what my thing invokes and requires. But beyond that, he is just an fantastic overall musician. Piano is an odd instrument to me in general — for the most part I have always kind of preferred a very open environment where the melodies express the harmony in an intrinsic way. But with the right player and the right sensitivity, guitar and piano together can be a fantastic combination.

With Antonio signed up and Gwilym, it was an interesting opportunity to explore who was out there to make it a quartet. There is a rare abundance of players right at the moment in New York City. I made it point to go out and check everyone out that I could or play with folks that had been recommended to me.

After a pretty extensive search, Linda Oh really rose to the top as the best choice. She is something special. She has all the requisite skills: great time, deep harmonic knowledge and a great sound on the instrument and technique to spare; but there is something else going on with her. She has a kind of presence as a musician that invites her listeners to follow the details of her story as she spins it. There is a narrative depth to her soloing and her lines as she accompanies the musicians around her that is particular. Additionally, like Gwilym (and Antonio too actually) she comes with a real deep knowledge of my thing from her early days as a musician. She told me she came of age listening to my trio record with Dave Holland and Roy Haynes, Question and Answer and she really understands that area as well as the broad view of music that is reflected in her own work and all the bands she has played with around NYC. I am really excited to have her join this group — I love playing with Linda.

So, this is an exceptional group of musicians. We are playing music from all across the spectrum of my career as well as a bunch of new music that I have written recently. And we went into the studio in December and recorded a whole bunch of new stuff and some of that may be on the program as well. It should be a fun night.

Q: What are the challenges that face you when it comes to the repertoire for this concert? How do you find yourself combating those challenges? Have you enjoyed the flexibility that this tour has provided you in terms of repertoire from which to pull?

A: What is nice is that after all the time that has passed since I started, people seem to know that I have never just done the same thing over and over and even kind of expect me to keep coming up with something new each time. I have many different ways of thinking about music myself, even as a fan of music, and I have always felt like it was an essential part of my thing to be very honest about all of it and really follow through with each idea to the best of my ability.

But it’s true that mostly each time I go out on the road, I am pretty focused on whatever the new music of that particular time is. This presentation is a bit different in that respect.

So, when it comes time to play some of the older tunes, to me, they are all still fun to play. I don’t think there is anything from any period where I go, “Wow, what was I thinking there?” So while using that as a kind of launch pad this time, I am also looking to feature the strengths of the exceptional group of musicians I am bringing with me — all of whom kind of grew up listening to that music and can now bring their own takes to it. I always try to put together a program each day that will be challenging and fun to play and hopefully will be fun for the folks who come to check it out as it will be for me to be standing on the bandstand.

Q: On your website, you mention that you will play each concert in this tour a little differently. You’ve said that for some concerts you might play only old music, and some nights you’ll perhaps play entire albums. How has this fleshed out as you’ve done the tour?

A: That thing of playing entire albums hasn’t really come up — but I don’t think I have ever had another band who could pull something like that off. This band would be able to do that.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like for audience members to know about this concert?

A: This is a pretty special band performing at an extremely high level. It is hard for me to imagine someone who likes music who wouldn’t have a great time at this concert.

This story was originally published January 21, 2017 at 6:07 PM with the headline "Q&A with Pat Metheny: ‘Every chance I get to play is a privilege’."