Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny brings his latest group to Lexington Opera House

A half century on, the 71-year-old Metheny’s sense of jazz exploration remains tireless and unending. But one notable perspective has shifted. Instead of being the youthful protégé mentored by jazz masters, the guitarist is now playing the role of elder to a band of young, but industrious artists in a band called Side-Eye — specifically this year, an augmented version titled Side-Eye III+. That’s the ensemble that will bring Metheny back to Lexington this week for a concert at the Lexington Opera House.

“The original part of Side-Eye’s conception, for me, was that I was the beneficiary of getting hired by older musicians at different points along the way — starting when I was 14 or 15 years old, actually — and how I really benefited from that. That includes the years that I got to spend with Gary Burton and Steve Swallow. I also spent a lot of time playing with Roy Haynes, Sonny Rollins and Herbie Hancock —musicians who were really the generation, or even two generations, above me. That’s a big part of what this community is about.

“So it’s not just now. This sort of began a while back, when a group of musicians kind of a certain generation — and that would be Brad Mehldau, Christian McBride, Antonio Sánchez, Bill Stewart, Larry Grenadier; all those guys are very close to the same age — found me in a way. I mean, they all looked me up and were looking for a chance to play back when they were emerging, and found something in whatever my thing had been up to that point that resonated with them.”

Side-Eye began to take shape with trio concerts in 2019 that surfaced on a 2021 recording, “Side-Eye NYC (V1.IV),” that combined new music with vintage Metheny compositions. As touring intensified internationally, the Side-Eye lineup shifted to teaming Metheny with drummer Joe Dyson and keyboardist Chris Fishman, both of whom will serve as the core of the band Metheny will play with in Lexington.

“Chris Fishman and Joe Dyson are the kinds of musicians that I dream about — you know, that can play anything,” Metheny said. “They’re also willing not to play what they can play, which is a weird concept. A lot of people get to the point where they’re proficient and then they just want to be proficient. Both Joe and Chris have a certain kind of inner conception and discipline that allows them to also play very simply and that’s the hardest thing for me to find.

“But as it turns out, my idea originally of it being, ‘Well, I’m going to hire younger musicians,’ is ironic at this stage of the game because pretty much everybody is younger than me now.”

As suggested by the name Side-Eye III+, which is also the title of Metheny’s newest album, the sound, style and personnel of the band has expanded. On varying tunes, the album adds bass, accordion, harp, percussion and a full vocal ensemble (in Lexington, the Side-Eye group will be a quintet with the addition of bassist Jermaine Paul and percussionist/vocalist Leonard Patton.) What results is a fascinating mix of new and familiar Metheny strategies.

“Urban and Western,” for instance, begins with a relaxed guitar groove colored by a hint of Wes Montgomery lyricism before the music boils over into gospel jubilation with help from the vocal team. But longer and more melodically pensive pieces that place Metheny’s darting guitar runs around rich keyboard and percussion passages can’t help but bring the late ’80s music of the Pat Metheny Group to mind.

Metheny, though, doesn’t separate styles or even eras of his music so specifically. He views his compositions as the product of a more singular inspiration.

“It’s funny how people divide my thing up in a way that I just don’t,” Metheny said. “I guess that’s because it’s me being me from my perspective. Everything I have ever done, for me, is the Pat Metheny Group, no matter what I have called it, and it always has been. There’s no distinction for me between playing trio, playing with four people, playing with seven people, playing with nine people or whatever.

“I got pretty good at branding things before people thought about branding, I guess, in that I understood if I did this, I should call it that, and if I did that, I should call it this. But for me, it’s all the same thing. It’s not like, ‘Oh, well, that one was a co-op and this one is me as the leader.’ My main gig over the years has been that of bandleader who writes the music. I mean, it’s always been that way. Hopefully, it’s a benevolent dictatorship.

“The fundamentals of how the thing works have been exactly the same from ‘Bright Size Life’ on, which is: I’m going to write a bunch of music, I’m going to try to find the right people, and then we’re going to maybe do a tour, record, or whatever.”

But at 71, what continues to drive Metheny? His 2026 tour will keep him on the road until late September with much of the summer to be spent performing in Europe. That would be taxing for an artist of any age.

“That is kind of superfluous to me in that it doesn’t affect me, really. I suppose there might be a point that it will, but I’m happy to say —and I’m knocking on wood while I’m saying this — that at this point it’s no different now than it was when I was 15. I mean, it’s the same.

“The big difference is that I can play way, way, way, way better now, so it’s a lot more fun for me. But there’s also that paradox, which is that as you grow as a musician, or whatever field it is that you’re devoted to, the more you know, the better you get, the more you realize you don’t know anything. That part of it is another aspect that I really love — that it’s a constant state of the endpoint moving away at the same rate that you’re moving toward it. And that just keeps everything interesting and keeps it all going.”

Pat Metheny Side-Eye III+

When: March 25 at 8 p.m.

Where: Lexington Opera House, 401 W. Short

Tickets: $62-$100.30 through ticketmaster.com.