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Mike Stern: Echoes and Other Songs

By Doug Collette
September 13, 2024
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With a running time of seventy-seven minutes plus, guitarist

Mike Stern

guitar
b.1953

" data-original-title="" title="">Mike Stern's Echoes and Other Songs is effectively a double album. And like most such expansive works—including classics like

" data-original-title="" title="">Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde (Columbia, 1966) and The Beatles (aka 'The White Album')(Apple, 1968)—it would benefit from consolidation of its best elements (as would a replacement of the amateurish cover design).

Even so, this is still a deceptively ambitious piece of work. Of course, advanced thinking has virtually always been the forte of Mike Stern, who's collaborated with the innovative likes of

Miles Davis

trumpet
1926 - 1991

" data-original-title="" title="">Miles Davis,

Jaco Pastorius

bass, electric
1951 - 1987

" data-original-title="" title="">Jaco Pastorius, and

Bela Fleck

banjo
b.1958

" data-original-title="" title="">Bela Fleck. But his most significant achievement with this project may very well be how he manages to unify what are essentially two separate lineups of musicians.

The moments of note across the eleven cuts invariably involve Stern's guitar work. And regardless of the context, his playing immediately invokes the halcyon days of jazz-rock fusion: scythe-like runs incandescent with energy. Yet at the very start of the album, on "Connections," the sound shifts almost imperceptibly from hybrid mode into a more traditional jazz approach. Still, it hardly takes the eight minutes-plus duration of that track to discern the triggers: fittingly, the guitarist's lines arc far and wide as tenor saxophonist

Chris Potter

saxophone, tenor
b.1971

" data-original-title="" title="">Chris Potter bears down with his notes in his distinct, but elliptical fashion.

Each man's instrumental personality thus permeates the opening cut. Likewise, the rhythm section on "I Hope So" and "Curtis" swiftly propels the bandleader into different but no less far-reaching spaces; bassist

Richard Bona

bass, electric
b.1967

" data-original-title="" title="">Richard Bona and drummer

Dennis Chambers

drums
b.1959

" data-original-title="" title="">Dennis Chambers evince as much free-wheeling joy in their playing as their counterparts, respectively,

Christian McBride

bass
b.1972

" data-original-title="" title="">Christian McBride and

Antonio Sanchez

drums
b.1971

" data-original-title="" title="">Antonio Sanchez.

It is a tribute to Mike Stern's leadership on his sixteenth album under his own name that musicians with such impressive resumes exercise the humility necessary to productively incorporate themselves into these instrumental interactions. McBride, for instance, employs an electric instrument to both support and embellish the work of those around him on cuts including "Stuff Happens."

Stern often displays a decided blues influence that suits both the tune and the comparatively raw sound around him. That tone is particularly useful in counteracting a nagging similarity to the polished latter day recordings of

Steely Dan

band / ensemble / orchestra
b.1972

" data-original-title="" title="">Steely Dan that arise most predominantly on "Space Bar."

The resemblance may be inevitable given recently deceased producer Jim Beard's extended tenure with the group, not to mention Mike Stern's own eclectic enterprises over the years. But it does not render the comparison any less obvious (or palatable) than a likeness to middle-period

Pat Metheny Group

band / ensemble / orchestra
b.1977

" data-original-title="" title="">Pat Metheny Group in the form of "I Hope So."

With Bona doing vocals—as he often did during his tenure with PMG—it is impossible not to hear such overt influence in the track. As with the aforementioned instance of

Donald Fagen

piano and vocals
b.1948

" data-original-title="" title="">Donald Fagen and

Walter Becker

guitar
1950 - 2017

" data-original-title="" title="">Walter Becker's (over) influence, this selection might well have been excised to maximize the resonance of the record.

Better that Echoes instead contained more of the propulsive likes of "Where's Leo?" a manifestation of crackling energy that cut brings to mind the vintage solo works of

Return to Forever

band / ensemble / orchestra

" data-original-title="" title="">Return to Forever drummer

Lenny White

drums
b.1949

" data-original-title="" title="">Lenny White on his Venusian Summer (Nemperor, 1975) and Big City (Nemperor, 1977).

The aimless number "Crumbles" also undermines this long player as a genuinely distinctive piece of work. The finely-etched fretboard work of Stern that rescues "Gospel Song" from its derivative roots is, unfortunately, missing there, suggesting the innate potency of the project dissipated somewhat through a lack of discipline.

More concise performances—or perhaps some more real free-form improvisation on simple changes like those of "Could Be"—might well have maintained the power in the playing not only of the man whose name tops the bill, but also everyone that plays with him.

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Track Listing

Connections; Echoes; Stuff Happens; Space Bar; I Hope So; Where's Leo?; Gospel Song; Crumbles; Curtis; Climate; Could Be.

Personnel

Mike Stern

guitar

Chris Potter

saxophone, tenor

Christian McBride

bass

Antonio Sanchez

drums

Richard Bona

bass, electric

Dennis Chambers

drums

Bob Franceschini

saxophone, tenor

Jim Beard

piano

Arto Tuncboyacian

percussion

Additional Instrumentation

Mike Stern: backing vocal); Jim Beard: keyboards; Leni Stern: ngoni; Richard Bona: vocals; Bob Franceschini: soprano saxophone .

Album information

Title: Echoes and Other Songs | Year Released: 2024 | Record Label: Mack Avenue Records

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