Quality Control

“I’m really happy to be able to bring this band especially down there; this is one of the strongest groups I’ve ever had,” starts Metheny. “We’re doin’ almost 160 concerts this year all over the place so it’s quite a tour.”

It’s clear by the way Metheny speaks, without a hint of ego, that he’s truly enjoying the company of his Unity Band. “This tour in a lot of ways is the second-go-around of this particular line-up. We did a record in 2012 called Unity Band, where it had been a long time since I’d had a band with a saxophone to the degree that this does, and the feature player is Chris Potter, who to me is sort of the most important saxophone player of his generation and we feel really lucky to have him playing with me. We had a great time on that first round and all agreed we wanted to keep it goin’ and do it again.

“And that sort of prompted me to think, ‘Well if we’re gonna do a second record, let’s do somethin’ really different from the first one.’ And even though the first one was very successful and won the Grammy that year for Best Jazz Record, I still thought, ‘Well what else can this band be?’

“So I really wrote music [for KIN (←→)] that pushes it to a whole other level. The way I’ve been describing it along the way is that our first Unity Band record was kind of like a black and white documentary and this one is sort of like the Steven Spielberg version of the band. And live it’s really like that too; we cover an enormous range of material that goes across the whole length of all the music that I’ve played since I started. It’s quite a long and extensive show that we’ve been puttin’ on that’s sometimes three or three-and-a-half hours long that really covers the whole deal but sort of features the last couple of records.”

In his 60th year, Metheny shows no signs of slowing down. “For me it’s a pleasure to get to play that much, especially with musicians at this level… I’ve done it for such a long time my metabolism has completely adapted to that way of living a life. There’s a few things that for me are important about how to maintain my consistency musically and it does require a certain kind of discipline, but it’s a real honour and it’s a privilege to be able to play that much for audiences all over the place.”