Latest Pat Metheny album, tour a one-man band and coming to Lexington

One might suspect that in listening to his newest album, “Dream Box,” Pat Metheny subscribes to the familiar axiom of doing something yourself when you want it done correctly.

That especially holds true for the immediate impressions the record creates. It summons a profound but subtle glow unique to the electric guitar when its pace and volume are slowed and the only accompanists are multi-tracked melodies of an additional guitar line. In short, it’s a quiet venture where Metheny is the only participant.

But such a distinctive solo setting, which brings Metheny back to Lexington for his first concert here in over three decades, is but a chapter in a 50-year recording career that has thrived in collaborative settings, whether it was through his famed ensemble fusion work with the Pat Metheny Group, a cinematic collaboration with David Bowie (1985’s “This is Not America”) and supporting, as well as bandleading, roles involving artists from almost every stylistic corner of the jazz world.

Such lasting and far-reaching visibility has had its rewards — namely 20 Grammy Awards in 10 categories spanning 44 years. If you think that is dizzying, look at Metheny’s touring schedule. No sooner did an extensive international trio tour to promote his 2021 album “Side-Eye” wind down than an equally long-running trek of solo concerts to back up “Dream Box” began. On top of that, Metheny used a brief break from the road to cut an even newer album — a very different solo guitar record to be titled “MoonDial” — due out this summer.

All this from a guy who is going to turn 70 in August.

“The challenge is always that I have way more ideas and projects and things I want to do then I have time,” Metheny said. “It takes me a long time to fully develop ideas, to write the music for a particular project and then to come up with exactly the right people for a band and all of the other million things that you have to do in order to make something be a viable way of spending a year or two of your life as a bandleader.”

The key word here is “bandleader” — whether it was through the modern slant of his work in the Pat Metheny Group or the more traditionally leaning music of trios and quartets from more recent decades that have born his name, Metheny has been the man in charge. But a project like “Dream Box” isn’t that different. Metheny is still the leader. It’s just that his band is smaller.

“Really, most everything I have done in my life as a musician has mostly been under the banner of ‘bandleader,’ but a bandleader who also the person who is going to write the music. My main job has been finding musicians that were qualified and capable to achieve the kind a result for whatever music I happen to be writing or conceiving at a particular time and then doing records and touring that reflects that period.

“And in a lot of ways, this tour is similar. It’s just that in this case, I am the bandleader of a band where I am the only one in it.”

‘Dream Box’ album unique for Metheny

“Dream Box” differs considerably in both design and intent from such previous Metheny solo records as 2003’s “One Quiet Night” and 2011’s “What’s It All About.” The former was recorded quickly on a single baritone acoustic guitar while the latter employs a more expansive acoustic vocabulary on a collection of exclusively non-original compositions. Both albums won Grammys.

“Dream Box” was, in contrast, a happy accident. It was constructed from forgotten files of solo electric guitar works played with quiet delicacy that regularly overlaid multiple melodies for a beautifully subtle sense of harmony. The record earned Metheny his 49th Grammy nomination.

“Dream Box is unlike anything else I have ever done, especially because I had no idea I was even doing anything when I did it. In truth, I don’t remember exactly when I recorded this music. That alone makes it unique in the wide range of things that I’ve done across the years. I discovered a folder on my computer where I kept odds and ends things and just found myself listening to those nine tracks over and over again. It occurred to me that maybe other people might like to hear them, too. As it turns out, I guess they did, which is really cool.

“It is a very different kind of a presentation in terms of the instrumentation and sound of the record. The whole thing of doing two parts like that is something that I first did on ‘Bright Size Life’ (Metheny’s 1976 debut album) many years ago on the track ‘Unity Village.’ At that time, it was kind of exotic to do something like that where you would overdub on top of yourself. Now, you can go on any street corner anywhere in the world and there are musicians with looper pedals doing essentially the same thing.”

On the road at nearly 70

Luckily for Metheny, the ongoing and still-plentiful joys of live concerts outweigh the rigors — traveling, especially — that come with the touring life of a working musician. Though the repertoire, the performance and, to a degree, the audiences continually change, the core elements of the music, along with Metheny’s relationship to them, do not waver.

“One thing that is great about being a musician is that music, in its purest form, is impervious to all of the random ups and downs of the culture. By that I mean that the B-flat that I’m playing today is the same B-flat that existed a million years ago and will exist a million years from now.

“I feel so lucky to be dealing in a currency that is fundamentally true like that.

“The audiences are very different from night to night. Even if you play in the same city three nights in a row, it’s going be a totally different feeling each of those three nights. My relationship to the audience is something separate from my relationship to music itself in the sense that I hope everybody likes it. I will do my best to play well and to make sure we do a sound check, to take a shower before the concert and be as ready as I can be to present myself on the bandstand. But once the music starts it’s kind of between me and it. And I really only answer to that.

“I don’t mean to say that in a snotty kind of way, but my sense across doing this for many years is that as long as I can respond to the music in a really honest and deep way, usually that is the quality that has gotten me to the point where I can play a lot of concerts for people and people will continue to come and check them out. It seems like that mandate is the core element in it all that has been the foundation of my whole thing along the way.”

Pat Metheny Dream Box Tour

When: April 1, 8 p.m.

Where: Lexington Opera House, 401 W. Short

Tickets: $49.50-$118.50 through ticketmaster.com.