Sometimes I Hear You: Mike
Stern By ELENA GILLESPIE, Published:
April 15, 2006
Mike Stern The Jazz Cafe
London UK April 3, 2006
Sometimes
the muse comes in with the performers, sometimes she
doesn't. You can hear her absence instantly in a
blindfold test; she steals in like your favorite perfume
when she graces you with her presence. So it was with
Mike Stern at the Jazz Café in Camden Town, a hip part
of London where the Goths hang out waiting for sunrise.
The jazzers know where to look for the muse; it's in our
blood, we were inside getting into her stories with
Stern and his group. In a two-hour set with Bob
Franceschini on sax, Chris Minh Doky on bass and Kim
Thompson on drumkit, everyone brought forth a different
shade of her voice.
They opened with "Sunnyside
from Between the Lines, a perfect argument for a dance
floor, the music pulled it out of you. Stern's got a
pedigree, he played with Blood, Sweat & Tears for a
respectable tenure in the late '70's, and with Miles,
Jaco and the Breckers among others. His latest outing is
as a sideman on The Word is Out, a tribute to Jaco
Pastorius with his big band. While his playing is
somewhat reminiscent of Pat Metheny's with his ability
to make the guitar sound like the fifth player of the
group, to make any further comparisons would be
misleading. If Metheny extemporizes on jazz's Theory of
Relativity, then Stern demonstrates its Perfect
Geometry; each serving their own unique ideas. But his
moves are not stale, perfect angles have their own
beauty, his musical architecture grounded as opposed to
abstract. His support was stellar, all young enough to
be alarming. Minh Doky immediately set himself forward
as not only the foundational bass line but also a
lyrical, sweeping player. In "Slow Change, he posed a
harmonic dialectic, guitar vs. bass, one side then the
other, only to coalesce to a single melody line, a
hypnotic resolution of contrasts. Bob Franceschini was
also a standout, incredibly honest and to the point with
a personal, broad ranging accent. All were strong, sexy,
bluesy, it feeds your spirit to hear this kind of
playing.
Stern could sound like a handful of
trouble casting spells on you with some rampant blues to
mastering the room in a moment with his soul-twisting,
ethereal ballads. "Wing and a Prayer had hope written
through it like a tapestry, you knew it without the
title. "What I Meant to Say captured all those moments
when you just said to that someone what you never wanted
to say, poignant and now gone forever. But the next song
to last, "Still There, said it all. His music is
American idiom but only the best of it, you can hear the
wind in the canyons between the skyscrapers to the
circling dancers in a Virginia Reel. And underlying it
all is our real spirit, that nothing is accomplished
without passion.
A woman on drums is rare enough
in jazz, but transcending gender and race is the point
of music, being human is sufficient reason to sing. An
exceptional treat, Kim Thompson is possessed of a
dynamic yet seductive style, half winsome gypsy girl,
half African shaman woman. She has an original and
sophisticated way of interpreting the rhythm that wove
around the streets of your mind like a melody. Her
unique talents were showcased in "KT, written by Stern
with her in mind. From the new release, Who Let the Cats
Out, due in September, it began with alley cats mewing
and winding their way through the noise of the city to
the dancing girl busking on the downtown street corner.
Indeed, Mike Stern and company, who let the cats
out? Like you, we're still there; sometimes you can
sing, and sometimes I hear you. In a world where noise
is often mistaken for intent, there is nothing else that
truly is, but oh, thank the muse for that.
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