San Diego top concert picks: Oct. 27-Nov. 2

calico 10/26/2023

Pat Metheny plays Saturday in El Cajon

Guitar great Pat Metheny has long sustained such an impeccably high level of musicianship and finely honed audio quality at his concerts around the world that it’s difficult for anyone to imagine his performances being less than flawless. Except, that is, unless you ask Metheny himself.

“I have done thousands of gigs now, and just about everything that could ever go wrong has gone wrong — lots and lots of times!” the 20-time Grammy Award-winner told me in an email interview last week.

“I wouldn’t say it is something I look forward to as an opportunity. It is more like: ‘How would I have to adjust to that moment to keep the story going?’ If I can at all.”

One of the most influential guitarists, composers and band leaders of the past 50 years, Metheny is the only musician ever to earn Grammy Awards in a dozen different musical categories. They include wins for Best Rock Instrumental, Best Instrumental Jazz Album, Best Instrumental Composition, Best Contemporary Jazz Performance, Best Jazz Fusion Performance and Best New Age Album.

Comfortable in seemingly any musical setting, the Missouri native has collaborated with everyone from Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Steve Reich and bossa nova pioneer Antonio Carlos Jobim to such jazz giants as Herbie Hancock, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Haden and Brad Mehldau. Metheny has also led numerous bands that have served as launching pads for standout young instrumentalists — including Mexican drum marvel Antonio Sanchez — who have become noted solo artists in their own right.

But Metheny’s concert here on Saturday in El Cajon will be only the second time in memory that he’s performed here without a band. Given that the first was in 2010, this will be a rare chance to hear him completely on his own. By contrast, Metheny’s 2010 “Orchestrion” tour concert here found him using his guitar to trigger an array of string, percussion and keyboard instruments, in effect making him the biggest and most intricate one-man band in history.

This time around, though, he is touring to promote his band-free “Dream Box” album, which showcases six-string solo pieces that he describes as “quiet electric guitar.”

If Metheny’s previous tours are anything to go by, you can expect the songs on “Dream Box” to take on intriguing new shapes and aural dimensions on stage. And, if anything goes wrong, well, that just might be a bonus in the hands of such a skilled, in-the-moment musician.

7 p.m. Saturday. The Magnolia, 210 E. Main St., El Cajon. $65-$90. ticketmaster.com