1. Tumble Home
2. KT
3. Good Question
4. Language
5. We're With You
6. Leni Goes Shopping
7. Roll With It
8. Texas
9. Who Let The Cats Out?
10 All You Need
11. Blue Runway
Mike Stern - Guitar
Bob Franceschini – Tenor sax (tracks 1-4, 9-11)
Jim Beard – Piano, organ, synthesizer, clavinet
Chris Minh Doky – Bass (tracks 1, 6, 9)
Kim Thompson – Drums (tracks 1, 2, 4, 6, 7,
9, 10)
Roy Hargrove – Trumpet (tracks 2, 9)
Meshell Ndegeocello – Bass (tracks 2, 8)
Richard Bona - Bass, vocals (tracks 3-5, 10)
Dave Weckl – Drums (tracks 3, 5, 8, 11)
Gregoire Maret – Harmonica (tracks 5, 8)
Victor Wooten – Bass (track 7)
Bob Malach – Tenor sax (track 7)
Anthony Jackson – Bass (track 11)
This
CD opens with one of the most dynamic tracks
I have ever heard, as Mike Stern’s darkly
mysterious guitar is thrust along by the phenomenal
drumming of Kim Thompson. The second track
shows how Stern can make his guitars sound
very different from one another, as this has
a touch of Peter Frampton about the clangorous
guitar tone, with stratospheric trumpet from
Roy Hargrove. Good Question changes
the mood again, with a slight calypso feel,
while Language puts Richard Bona’s
voice in unison and counterpoint with his
own bass guitar and Mike’s guitar (a device
also used by Pat Metheny).
We’re
With You is a quiet, delicate melody picked
out subtly by guitar and the keyboards of
the multi-talented Jim Beard (who also produced
the album). It makes a potent contrast with
the technoflash of several other tracks. Gregoire
Maret’s evocative harmonica comes in to underline
the track’s poignancy.
Bob
Malach’s tenor sax adds to the funkiness of
Roll With It. Texas has a sense
of country-and-western, with Gregoire Maret’s
harmonica again adding to the atmosphere.
The title-track is a hustling mixture of furious
jazz-funk and swinging four-in-the-bar, ending
with a cheeky afterthought from Kim Thompson
(a drummer who promises great things, and
who so impressed Mike Stern that he gave track
2 the title KT in her honour).
All
the tunes on the album are Stern’s own compositions
and they display the wide range of his powers:
combining technical brilliance with a feeling
towards melody: not something you can say
about all modern jazzers. Stern uses a variety
of musicians who all seem ideal for the purpose:
as he says, "I composed the tunes thinking
about which musicians would work best for
each track". This is already on my list
of Albums of the Year.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Heads Up
HUCD 3115
