L.A. Times, Dec. 14, 2006
Jazz Review Guitarist Mike Stern, One Cool
Cat by Don Heckman, Special to The Times
THE fusion flame was alive and flourishing in
guitarist Mike Stern's opening set at Catalina Bar &
Grill Tuesday
night. What kind of fusion, one might ask, since jazz
has been fusing in all kinds of directions in the last
few decades? For Stern, the answer is: whatever musical
connection appeals to him at any given moment.
This time out, Stern, whose stellar career encompasses a
sequence of musical partnerships reaching from Blood,
Sweat & Tears and Jaco Pastorius to Miles Davis and the
Brecker Brothers, was working with a trio of frequent
partners: tenor saxophonist Bob Franceschini, bassist
Victor Wooten and drummer Dennis Chambers. Most of the
music was from his latest CD, "Who Let the Cats Out", a
collection of material that aptly combines the jazz,
blues, funk, rock and groove aspects that are essential
to his style. The resulting high-voltage performance
offered a virtually nonstop stream of music, all of it
state-of-the-art contemporary electric jazz.
Stern was at the center of the action. Strutting the
stage with the confident manner of a '70s rock 'n'
roller, the slender, long-haired guitarist, making his
52 years look like the new 32, triggered the beginnings
of every number, sparked their climaxes and brought them
to rousing conclusions. Stern has fully mastered the
electric guitar as a jazz instrument. Like
contemporaries Pat Metheny and John McLaughlin, his
solos replaced the acoustically oriented,
horn-influenced styles of earlier jazz guitarists with
the sustained tones, sliding phrases and power-driven
sounds associated with rock. And he did so while
sustaining a steady linkage with the motivic patterns
and surging rhythmic drive of bop-oriented jazz.
Saxophonist Franceschini was an able associate, ripping
off many of the tunes' fast-paced lines with consummate
ease, countering Stern's driving lines with aggressive,
often multi-phonic patterns of his own. Chambers -
always a titanic engine of rhythm - balanced propulsive
backup support with several motion-blurring,
percussively explosive improvisational excursions. And
Wooten, perhaps best known for his work with Béla
Fleck's Flecktones, provided the perfect climax to a
dynamic evening with a prodigious strumming, plunking,
thumping solo, scouring the outer limits of his
instrument.
Copyright
2006 Los Angeles Times
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