Birthday Jazz star Pat Metheny bows to Johann Sebastian Bach

American jazz guitarist Pat Metheny has won 20 Grammys. He has worked with countless greats. He took off at a very young age. Now he is 70 years old.

Life on tour may be a strain for many musicians. For jazz guitarist Pat Metheny, however, it is his preferred lifestyle, as he revealed to the German Press Agency. "It's easier for me than everyday civilian life. I just have to play as well as I can in the evenings, I'm used to that - and I'm fine with that."

Although the multi-award-winning guitarist has spent most of his life on tour, his family with three children is also important to him, he says. "The important thing is to maintain a balance."

Successful

His reputation as a guitarist could hardly be greater: At 14, he won a prestigious guitar competition, at 15 he played with the jazz greats of Kansas City, at 18 he was a guitar lecturer at the University of Miami and a year later at the world-famous talent hotbed, Berklee College Of Music in Boston.

Metheny played with jazz greats such as Herbie Hancock, Gary Burton and Michael Brecker, but also with acts from the pop and folk genres - such as Joni Mitchell, Bruce Hornsby and David Bowie. Pat Metheny has released over 30 solo albums and around a dozen longplayers with the Pat Metheny Group, which he leads.

39 Grammy nominations and 20 Grammy Awards make the artist with the curly mane one of the most successful musicians of all time. "I'm very grateful for these awards," says Metheny. "But the reality is that we've had musicians like Bach - and nobody lives up to that standard. No one has even come close."

His closeness to classical music is also evident on his new album "MoonDial" (BMG), which was released at the end of July. On it, he interprets 13 compositions by others and his own on a baritone guitar specially made for him - great instrumental music in which jazz, Latin, classical music, Beatles evergreens and melodies from the Great American Songbook find a common denominator.

Although Metheny would certainly protest now, because standardized style pigeonholes are not his thing. "Music is a big thing," he says. "If someone is creative, no matter what form it takes, I feel drawn to it. But I don't care about genre classifications at all."

David Bowie

That's why he had no reservations when he recorded the song "This Is Not America" with David Bowie in 1984. His encounter with the British pop eccentric still has him raving forty years later: "Bowie was one of the smartest people I've ever met. He was brilliant. Watching him work and sing was an extremely rewarding experience."

As expected, he is relaxed about his upcoming birthday. He has "nothing to do" with a party. And the number 70 doesn't shock him either.

"It's funny," he says cheerfully, "when I was 18 years old, our drummer Bob Moses called me 'Methuselah'. To him, I was super-old at 18. And today, at 70, I'm probably incredibly immature."

SDA