Guitar legend and 20-time Grammy Award-winner Pat Metheny earned an enthusiastic ovation for his insightful 2018 keynote address at the annual Society for Neuroscience Conference. But he was left speechless by what happened as he ate lunch barely 30 minutes later in an adjacent VIP lounge at the San Diego Convention Center.
“You drew more people than the Dali Lama!” a beaming society honcho said. “He was our keynote speaker last year.
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Metheny, who was dining with his Brazilian-born wife, Latifa, San Diego guitar great Peter Sprague and this writer, was understandably surprised and flattered. He had no idea how to respond, as he reaffirmed during a recent interview from his country home in New York’s Catskill Mountains.
“There have been a couple of moments in my life that were so far outside of my jurisdiction that I was like: ‘What?!’ That was definitely one of them,” said Metheny, who performs here Thursday at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park with his latest band, Side-Eye.
“Giving the keynote speech to 5,000 neuroscientists? My impulse is always to do things where I really don’t know what I’m doing, so I said: ‘Sure.’ It was kind of terrifying, but it was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had.”
Close behind is Side-Eye, the band he formed a few years ago as an adjunct to his long-running Pat Metheny Group.
The live double-album was recorded at Manhattan’s Sony Music Hall over two nights in September 2019. It offers a heady display of Side-Eye’s electrifying instrumental skills and near-telepathic interplay. The group’s songs sound alternately futuristic and rooted in tradition, like a 21st century iteration of a 1960s jazz guitar, organ and drums trio.
“When I was 14, I started playing in bands with people much older than me in Kansas City,” recalled the guitarist. His early years in music are chronicled in the new book, “Beneath Missouri Skies: Pat Metheny in Kansas City, 1964-1972,” published by University of North Texas State Press.
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