Metheny Sets Strings Humming

Pat Metheny didn’t hold anything back Saturday night at the Universal Amphitheatre. Offering a near-capacity crowd a three-hour program (without intermission), he managed to support his new album, “Speaking of Now,” toss in some favorites from past recordings and provide showcases for each of the artists in the current six-man version of the Pat Metheny Group.

Not many musicians have the history and the repertoire to support such an outing. But Metheny, who has performed with everyone from Ornette Coleman to David Bowie, has also led his own ensembles for decades, scoring an unprecedented seven Grammy Awards for seven consecutive albums. That’s a substantial base of recorded material from which to operate, and Metheny has enhanced his appeal by affording his audiences plenty of opportunities to hear his groups in live performance, typically averaging nearly 200 shows a year since 1974.

Despite the length of the program, it unfolded smoothly via colorful shifts of emphasis. Because the Metheny group--longtime associates Lyle Mays on piano and Steve Rodby on bass, newcomers Cuong Vu on trumpet, Richard Bona on percussion, bass, guitar and vocals, and Antonio Sanchez on drums--is the same unit that recorded “Speaking of Now,” the songs from the album were particularly well done. Having now had the opportunity to work through the numbers night after night in live interaction, the band delivered the material with an inventiveness that was a level up from the already fine performances on the CD.

Metheny alternated full ensemble pieces with a series of differing instrumental combinations--guitar and drums, guitar and keyboards, etc.--as well as substantial opportunities for each of the players to step into the solo spotlight.

Some of those individual efforts were especially impressive: Metheny’s remarkable ability to play a diverse array of guitars, from acoustic to electric to his amazing 42-string Pikasso, perceptively discovering the unique qualities of each; Bona’s exquisite vocals, especially in a number in which he accompanied himself on the mbira (thumb piano); Vu’s use of electronic repetition devices to expand his solo trumpeting into huge orchestral sounds; several rousing drum solos from Sanchez.

Mays, always an important factor, added a few fine solos, as did Rodby, but both played more vital roles in creating an empathetic musical foundation.

That foundation, combined with Metheny’s great versatility and the important contributions of the group’s new members, resulted in a stirring evening of music--convincing testimony to the fact that there are adventure and audience appeal in jazz that reach well beyond the classic styles of the ‘40s and ‘50s.