Jazz-pop duo Tuck and Patti thrive on collaboration in music, life

Tuck Andress and Patti Cathcart are the original “Love Warriors,” the title of their sophomore 1989 album and an apt description of their approach to their life and their art.

They’re also road warriors. Just two weeks back from Europe, the husband/wife guitar-vocal duo kick off their summer U.S. tour on Saturday at the Kroc Center in Coeur d’Alene – their first appearance in the region since a 1995 date at Silver Mountain Resort.

Their basic jazz-pop approach hasn’t changed over the years. Andress’ fluid, fluttering fretwork still provides a jaw-dropping complement to Cathcart’s rich, deep mezzo soprano. She can go from soulful to scatting just as quickly as his stylings shift from lyrical to percussive.

They still play a combination of diverse, inventive covers – Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time,” Rodgers and Hart’s “My Romance,” a medley of “Castles Made of Sand” and “Little Wing” by Jimi Hendrix, a major influence on both – along with Cathcart’s own heartfelt compositions.

“The original concept hasn’t really changed much at all, but it has evolved a great deal,” Andress said by phone from their Bay Area home.

“It’s like dancing: You kind of adapt to one another as you do it a lot. … You might have danced with your partner a zillion times, but it’s always different and it’s always unpredictable, or at least it should be. At some point you want to evolve past just doing the routine you worked out.”

Listening to him and Cathcart explain the intricacies of their 37-year musical collaboration is a lot like learning how they’ve managed to sustain a marriage for 34 years.

Really listen: The in-ear monitors they wear while performing keep them each attuned and reacting to every nuance of what the other is doing. “The more you can hear the details, the more you’re going to live in the details,” Andress said. “Every time we do a song, we know we’ll get through it, but we don’t know any of the details along the way, really.”

Don’t blame: When it comes to improvising, he said, “We decided we were going to make that a policy; regardless of the risk of failure, we were just going to make it a no-fault zone. It’s better to mess up than not to try.”

Just chill: “One of the most beautiful things of having played together so long is that you are no longer afraid of silence, and space in between notes, where to me, a whole lot of music lives,” Cathcart said.

She grew up in the San Francisco music scene, while the Oklahoma-born Andress came to it through Stanford University, where he studied classical guitar. They met in 1978 when she auditioned for a band he was playing in, and quickly decided they were better off on their own.

They started performing as a duo to make money while putting together their own group but never quite got around to that. After honing their combined chops, they signed with the Windham Hill label and in 1988 released their first album, “Tears of Joy.”

Their most recent, the standards collection “I Remember You,” came in 2008. The lull, Cathcart said, comes from a combination of dealing with “life with a capital L – people dying, people being born, people getting sick for long periods of time,” and the massive shifts in the music industry.

“That whole ‘do a record every two years and get a big advance that helps you live and do your thing’ is completely gone,” she said.

They’ve been working on an album for release later this year, but they’re also paying the bills and stretching their talents by producing and recording for other artists, and teaching lessons both in person and via Skype.

They also dabbled in pop culture with a guest spot last season on “Portlandia,” the quirky cable TV series, thanks to Andress’ musician niece, Annie Clark – better known as St. Vincent – who’s appeared on the show several times.

“We’ve been recognized by young people in airports,” Cathcart said. “We have a whole new street cred with all of our friends’ grandkids.”

Through it all, she and Andress appreciate exactly how lucky they’ve been.

“Sometimes I listen to us talk and it’s like, these people have to be making this stuff up,” Cathcart said. “We’re normal people, but we just have the amazing, unbelievable fortune in our lives to meet the person we love the most and do the thing we love the most, and do it for a lifetime. So there’s not a lot to complain about.”