Mike Stern

Mike Stern ( born January 10, 1953 in Boston) is an American jazz and fusion guitarist.

Life and work

At the age of twelve years, launched the " bebop Rocker" his career as a guitarist. Stern studied at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he discovered his love for jazz. Stern was on the recommendation of Pat Metheny, with whom he had studied at Berklee, a member of the jazz - rock group Blood, Sweat & Tears, with whom he released two albums. He played for a while in the group of influential drummer Billy Cobham. As part of the band around the jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, he can be heard on the live album We Want Miles.

Other major musicians with whom Mike Stern played in the 1980s and 1990s were together: Jaco Pastorius with his band Word Of Mouth, David Sanborn, John Scofield, Bill Frisell, Dave Weckl, Jack DeJohnette, Dennis Chambers, the fusion combo Steps Ahead Mike Mainieri and Michael Brecker and 1992, the Brecker Brothers.

Since the debut Neesh 1983 Mike Stern has released more albums, which were first produced by Jim Beard. The other albums have in the opinion of jazz critics and Ulf Drechsel and Richard Cook usually can not reach the high level of his live performances and his efforts to bring other musicians projects. His most recent albums Who Let The Cats Out? (2006) and Big Neighborhood ( 2009) were both respectively nominated for a Grammy in the Best Contemporary Jazz Album category.

Stern is married to the German fusion guitarist Leni Stern.

Style

With his background in rock and blues area are in star style clear references to BB King, Albert King, Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton audibly. Your licks he quotes frequently, and he often uses rock scales such as the Minor Pentatonic with Blue Note. Its extreme Bending and vibrato technique is also characteristic of rock music. Furthermore, Stern plays not only on old rock and jazz legends on, but also cites melodies of classical composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach. To hear this piece is about the play on his DVD Live New Morning, The Paris Concert, where he. , The theme of the play Suite No. 2 alludes to a few seconds. As a description for his sound on the guitar, he gives himself a kind of horn as an example. However, to deny is not that its altitude muted, flying chorus sounds similar to those of Pat Metheny in a certain way, which may be due to the fact that the lessons from the recent Metheny to his student days has also influenced him stylistically.

In the field of jazz, he is influenced by numerous models, Charlie Christian was named as perhaps most outstanding example, as Stern has further expanded its Independent of scale, targeting style. The chord tones of the harmonic superstructure are run chromatically.

Mike Stern played for many years a Fender Telecaster with a heavy ash body and a humbucker pickup in the neck position. This guitar, which was owned by Danny Gatton and Roy Buchanan previously, but was stolen during an armed robbery in Boston. For several years, he builds the manufacturer Yamaha a named according to Stern signature model in the Pacifica series, the Yamaha Pacifica MS1511.

Discography

• Neesh (1983 )
• Upside Downside (Atlantic, 1986)
• Time In Place (Atlantic, 1988)
• Jigsaw (Atlantic, 1989)
• Odds Or Evens (Atlantic, 1991)
• Standards ( And Other Songs) (Atlantic, 1992)
• Is What It Is (Atlantic, 1994)
• Between The Lines (Atlantic, 1996)
• Give And Take (Atlantic, 1997)
• Play ( Atlantic, 1999)
• Voices (Atlantic, 2001)
• These Times (ESC Records, 2003)
• Who Let The Cats Out? ( Heads Up, 2006)
• Big Neighborhood ( Heads Up, 2009)
• All Over The Place ( Heads Up, 2012)