It’s All About Getting Out on the Road

There was a period in guitarist Pat Metheny’s career when he literally spent his life on the road, traveling from gig to gig.

“For 15 years,” he says with a laugh. “I did have an apartment, but it was just a shelter for my answering machine. Basically, from ’77 to ’92 I was permanently in transit. I’d just occasionally go to this warehouse and swap the spring suitcase for the winter suitcase. For part of that time--from 1977 until 1981--we were mostly getting around in a van, and when we finally retired the van, it had 890,000 miles on it.”

Although Metheny, 47, is now considerably more settled--he has two young children, ages 1 and 3, and lives in Manhattan--he still spends a good portion of his time on the road. On March 23, he’ll make a stop at the Universal Amphitheatre with the latest version of the Pat Metheny Group, supporting the just-released CD “Speaking of Now.” The appearance comes just after the start of a tour that will continue--in the United States, Europe and Asia--until the end of the year.

“It’s different now,” he says, “in the sense that the real challenge is figuring out how to spend time at home. But I’m still convinced that traveling is the only real way to sustain a career in this business.

“Basically what we’ve done has been to go out and do billions of gigs. That’s the only way to do it because radio is absolutely nonexistent--especially for us. We’re in a very weird spot in the sense that KLON is not going to play us, we’re way too outside for the Wave [KTWV-FM], and in either case, all of our tunes are 10 minutes long--not because we try to write them that way but because that’s just how they come out.”

The Universal Amphitheatre performance will showcase a new version of the Metheny group. Lyle Mays, a musical partner for two decades, will be on keyboards and Steve Rodby, another associate, on bass. But the current group (and the recording) also features trumpeter Cuong Vu, singer-bassist-percussionist Richard Bona and drummer Antonio Sanchez.

The lineup brings a great deal of new, creative imagination to the group--in Metheny’s words, “a new potential.” After Sanchez--who has been prominently heard with Danilo Perez and David Sanchez--joined the group, Metheny briefly considered doing both the recording and the tour as a quartet. But the thought of adding other players, especially those with similarly distinctive personalities, became too appealing to resist.

“I wanted to reach outside of the communities of guys that I knew,” recalls Metheny, “so I called Richard up and asked if he knew anybody. There was this kind of pause, and then he said, ‘I’ve got the perfect person--me!’ I said, ‘But I’ve got Steve, who’s been playing bass with me for yeas, and he’s terrific.’ And Richard said, ‘Yeah, but I don’t like playing the bass. My first instrument’s percussion.’

“So I said, ‘Look, if you want the gig, you don’t have to twist my arm. But we’re going on the road for a year, doing 180 gigs or so.’ And Richard just said that, yeah, it was something he wanted to do, which was great with me. The fact is that he’s an incredible percussion player, the vocal quality that he adds is just amazing, and we’ll do a few things in which we have two basses.” “

Trying out new ideas comes easily to Metheny, whose resume reaches from Ornette Coleman, Herbie Hancock and Jim Hall to Steve Reich, Milton Nascimento and David Bowie. And one could make a convincing case for the vital importance of his work--along with that of John Scofield, Bill Frisell and John Abercrombie, among others--in dramatically widening the horizons for his instrument by blending elements of traditional jazz guitar with developments (stylistically and instrumentally) of the post-rock era.

Metheny also has never been reluctant to speak out forcefully about the artistic and the commercial aspects of the jazz world. A year or so ago, after hearing a recording in which Kenny G overdubbed his saxophone onto Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World,” Metheny excoriated G via an Internet posting for “spewing his ... jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped-out ... playing all over one of the great Louis’ tracks.”

Looking at the current jazz scene, he similarly--if in considerably less potent language--bemoans the fact that so many players have failed to make connections with the young listeners who are needed to sustain and expand the audience for the music.

“I hate to say this, “ says Metheny, “but some of the younger jazz guys got a taste of going to Europe, doing jazz festivals, having their little suites and flying around on jets and getting good fees from Day 1 of their careers. And you can’t get those guys to go play at a coffeehouse in Ames, Iowa, for 1,500 bucks; they just won’t do it.

“The truth is that, since 1980, there are few young kids who feel an affiliation with people their own age playing jazz, because the players in that generation didn’t make the connection. Nothing against any of the music they’ve done, but that movement tended to play for people much older than them. They didn’t go and play for their peers.”

All of which further underscores Metheny’s belief in the jazz version of politicians’ pressing the flesh, so to speak--of getting out and getting in touch with their audiences. And, particularly in the case of younger artists, getting in touch with their own generation.

“I really feel that the next generation of jazz guys--whoever they are--needs to take it to their own peers,” he says. “Go out there with a trio and do those 300 gigs a year or so to build an audience. Because there always are college-age kids who want something that’s more than the obvious, and jazz has been traditionally the perfect place to find music that’s beyond the obvious, for nearly a century.

“It’s the approach that worked for us in the beginning,” concludes Metheny, “and it’s the approach that still works for us: Just get out there and do a lot of gigs.”

The Pat Metheny group performs at the Universal Amphitheatre, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, on March 23, 8:15 p.m. (818) 622-4440.

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New Face at Cerritos: The appointment of Craig Springer as the executive director of the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts should be good news for jazz fans, as well as for the capacity audiences who have been pleased by the venue’s broadly eclectic programming. Springer has been the guiding light behind USC’s L.A. Jazz festival, including this year’s event, April 15-20, which features Sonny Rollins, Wayne Shorter and Christian McBride.

His plans for Cerritos include the addition of a smaller performing space to expand the venue’s booking potential.

“We expect it to hold about 350,” says Springer, “sometimes set up in cabaret style, sometimes like a traditional salon. We’re looking at starting a series of maybe 10 to 12 events in that space featuring newer artists--folks who perhaps wouldn’t be capable of selling out the big hall, but whom we should be exposing to our audiences.”

Some of the possible choices under consideration for the smaller venue: tenor saxophonist Seamus Blake Quartet and pianist Judy Carmichael.

Although he stresses that the “city council is primarily concerned with building upon the success that the center has already had, and adamant about having a broad and well balanced set of programs,” Springer also notes that “the folks who interviewed with me were pretty fascinated by the work we’d done at USC when I was there in terms of the L.A. Jazz programs.”

So, despite his insistence upon making sure that Cerritos “will not be transformed into a venue specifically for classical music or for jazz or for dance,” he is already punching up the center’s jazz programming with some potentially exciting bookings.

“I’m looking at things like Kenny Barron’s ‘Brazilia Project,’” Springer says. “Possibly an evening with McCoy Tyner’s Trio and Ahmad Jamal’s Trio. I like the Roy Haynes ‘Birds of a Feather’ project. I’m hoping for a Kirk Whalum date in the fall, and I’d love to do something with Dave Holland’s Quintet.”

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Late-Breaking News: Harry Connick Jr. will be playing some large-venue dates around the Southland in April. But jazz fans will have a single chance to hear him in a more focused setting. On April 8, he will perform two sets at the Jazz Bakery with his quartet. Tickets will undoubtedly go fast. The Bakery phone number is (310) 271-9039.