As musicians, McBride and Mehldau feel that they’ve ‘consolidated’

Pianist Brad Mehldau’s memoir Formation (2023) emphasizes the abundant creativity and formidable challenges within New York City’s late-1980s/early-1990s jazz scene. Through it all, young artists wound up meeting and admiring each other, especially Mehldau and bassist Christian McBride. Both of them went on to fulfill their youthful ambitions; the SCP Jazz duo performance Oct. 10 at Symphony Center will show how their mutual affinities have endured.

“We’ve both grown and changed, but we’ve also consolidated, if I could use that word, as musicians,” Mehldau said via email. “We’ve paired down aspects of jazz, Black American music, pop music and other strains of influence, and made it more part of our own identities, as bandleaders and side men. There is one thing for me that is easy about this project: I feel that Christian and I know each other so well. In musical terms, it is really like an old friendship where you might not see that person for a number of years, but as soon as you’re together, you pick up right where you left off.”

McBride added, “Brad is such an exquisite musician, he has so much depth in his playing and a recognizable, influential style. It’s easy to play with him, and the fact we’ve known for so long has helped.”

Mehldau and McBride describe those Manhattan clubs 35 years ago as rooms where the music’s giants hung out and served as mentors. McBride said the exchanges in such venues as Bradley’s [which closed in 1996] were never easy.

“Betty Carter would play a set, and she’d call you over to your table and critique each song,” McBride said. “She was far more brutal than any New York Times critic. All the older legends would show up to hear the younger musicians and support them with tough love. The idea wasn’t because they wanted to make you feel bad, it was to make you play better, and once you played better, they told you that.”

Such advice propelled McBride and Mehldau to high-profile careers as jazz leaders. They have collaborated occasionally, including a series of duet gigs at New York’s Blue Note in 2014 when Mehldau was a last-minute replacement for André Previn. Six years ago, saxophonist Joshua Redman revisited his 1994 quartet album, “MoodSwing,” which included Mehldau and McBride. The subsequent tour reignited the pianist and bassist’s idea to work together again; they knew that they could fill multiple instrumental roles when it was just the two of them onstage.

“I’ve always found that duo is a particular challenge,” Mehldau said. “It means a very direct exchange between the two musicians. Over the years playing with Christian, I had an idea that it could be a rewarding kind of challenge, the kind of musical experience I could grow from. Christian, as a musician, is a kind of force of nature. His depth of expression is so strong, always. So it’s like, ‘How can I interact with that, in this direct one on one kind of way?’ But in another sense, it’s so easy and joyous to play with Christian. So there’s this nice dichotomy for me of a challenge and a certain ease going at the same time.”

McBride said he looks back on those New York club days as ideal preparation for working in a rhythm section without a drummer.

“When you’re in a situation where you have to be bass player and drummer, just like any source of exercise, you get stronger at it,” McBride said. “Bradley’s, for the most part, was a venue that didn’t allow drums. So most bass players who played at Bradley’s were able to strengthen their time because they didn’t play with a drummer. I did a lot of that, and I enjoyed doing that, especially when you play with other musicians who have really good time, which Brad does.”

Coming from dissimilar backgrounds, Mehldau and McBride also introduced each other to their own musical influences. The pianist grew up in Connecticut on prog rock, and in Formation, discusses the classical-music triad known as “The Three Bs” (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms). Along with jazz, Philadelphia-native McBride has a deep understanding of R&B.

“As musicians, it’s really the totality of everything we’ve absorbed and loved that then comes out in the moment we’re playing,” Mehldau said. “This is particularly the case in the largely improvised format of jazz. So I’m sure James Brown is coming out — I don’t think Christian would argue with that! We are always listening to his music after the gig in the ‘hang.’ Christian has turned me on to some deep cuts.”

Mehldau presented a distinctive harmonic vision of Bach for the solo album, “After Bach” (2018) and last year’s sequel, “After Bach II.” He delved into the work of a different composer for “Ride Into the Sun” (released Aug. 29), which features his interpretations of works by singer-songwriter Elliott Smith.

“I discovered Elliott shortly after I moved to Los Angeles and went deeply into the two records that came out that time [the late 1990s]: ’XO’ and ’Figure Eight’,” Mehldau said. “He impacted me in a similar way as Nick Drake, Neil Young, Paul McCartney, or a number of singer-songwriter composers: very much as a harmonist. The way the tunes move harmonically is very nuanced.”

McBride’s resources are equally wide-ranging. Last year, he brought his “The Movement Revisited: A Musical Portrait of Four Icons” to Symphony Center. This large-scale tribute to civil-rights heroes combined jazz improvisers with orchestrations, a choir and dramatic recitations. His new album, “Without Further Ado, Vol. 1” (released Aug. 29), filters soul music through the lens of his big band and cast of vocalists that includes Jeffrey Osborne and Cécile McLorin Salvant.

“I never thought of soul, R&B and jazz as different entities, I think of them as different branches of the same tree,” McBride said. “Anything involved in my music, you have to stay close to the blues and the groove. Also, I like to throw enough in there that’s going make you raise your eyebrows. It doesn’t have to be the bass work, it could be the arrangements, solo, whatever that is.”

As Mehldau and McBride look at their road from small rooms to Symphony Center, they also reflect on what endures and how time itself becomes much more valuable.

“I understand an audience member is making a commitment — even in practical terms, like maybe you had to get a baby-sitter for your kids,” Mehldau said. “So likewise I feel a commitment on my end as a performer. In one sense, performing is joyful and also a kind of comfort zone for me. But in another sense, it has a certain gravity — perhaps even more as I grow older. It’s precious.”