Mike Stern Makes Mack Avenue Music Group/Artistry Music Debut With Echoes and Other Songs, Out September 13
Legendary guitarist reaches new heights with renowned collaborators including Christian McBride, Chris Potter, Antonio Sanchez, Dennis Chambers, and Richard Bona
Triumphant album follows the loss of longtime producer and keyboardist Jim Beard, the closure of Stern’s beloved 55 Bar, and the continuing physical hurdles he faces after his 2016 injury
Echoes and Other Songs, Mike Stern’s Mack Avenue Music Group/Artistry Music debut, is a powerhouse document from one of the finest guitarists in jazz history, at a time in his career when he’s overcome immense physical struggles and experienced profound loss. In the sheer might of these performances, Echoes is a defiant record — not so much a victory lap as a call to arms.
It delivers all the elements that longtime Stern fans want, and then some: the hook-filled bebop writing; the gorgeous melodic sensibility culled from African music, gospel, and other influences; the breakneck improvisations that fuse jazz virtuosity with rock fire.
Beyond the aforementioned names, several of Stern’s most trusted collaborators are on hand to generate an explosive rapport — absolute masters like drummer Dennis Chambers, electric bassist and vocalist Richard Bona, saxophonist Bob Franceschini, percussionist Arto Tunçboyacian, and Leni Stern, the guitarist’s spouse, who guests on the West African ngoni.
The project also features Stern’s creative confidant Jim Beard played piano and keyboards, and produced the album — one of his last projects before his passing in March 2024.
But Echoes and Other Songs is also a strikingly new and vibrant entry in Stern’s extensive catalog. To start, it mainly features a new Stern-led band comprising musicians who are nothing less than architects of 21st-century jazz: saxophonist Chris Potter; drummer Antonio Sanchez; Beard; and Christian McBride, who does extraordinary work on upright bass and reminds listeners that he ranks among the greatest electric bassists, as well. It’s a high-profile lineup, even for a musician who broke through under the tutelage of Miles Davis, as Stern did in the early to mid-’80s. “I was a nervous wreck when I went to the session with all those heavyweights there,” the guitarist says, chuckling. “And they just played their asses off — everybody.”
Then there’s the writing, elevated by Beard’s expert arranging. While Stern’s compositions here retain the grooving directness that makes all of his music so memorable and durable, the guitarist reaches new levels throughout Echoes in terms of adventure and sheer beauty. To wit: the moments of avant-jazz abstraction that surprise on “Crumbles,” and the melodic-harmonic splendor of tracks like “Gospel Song,” “I Hope So” and “Curtis,” a Curtis Mayfield tribute. On the latter two tracks, Richard Bona offers his tender self-harmonized vocals, furthering his and Stern’s soulful partnership.
From front to back, Echoes is an airtight and commanding work. The kinetic “Connections” is a quintessential Stern blowing vehicle. Infused with a noirish, mysterious vibe, “Echoes” is jazz-rock that explodes into shredding solos from Stern and Potter. The blues-soaked “Stuff Happens” anticipates “Space Bar,” classic Stern-style funk-fusion that rides Chambers’ impeccable pocket. Making the drum maestro’s presence on Echoes even more profound and profoundly moving, in 2014, Stern saved Chambers’ life after he found him, comatose, in a European hotel room on tour. He’d developed holes in the lining of his esophagus and was bleeding to death. “I think he saved his life because he has so much strength,” Stern says, “and he came back from all that.”
“Where’s Leo?,” a turbocharged line with Latin and Middle Eastern tinges, is named for the pianist Leo Genovese, a friend and collaborator who offered support and insight while Stern was composing this new music during the pandemic. (Note, though, that Genovese does not appear on the album.) As Echoes nears its end, “Climate” features an expectedly jaw-dropping upright bass solo from McBride, full of fluid virtuosity, blues, and ensemble interplay. The swinging Monk-like closer, “Could Be,” is a contrafact that puts Stern’s new melody atop the changes to “It Could Happen to You.” “Chris Potter just kills this tune,” Stern says, as if still in disbelief. “I mean, he just tore it up.”
You could confidently argue that Echoes and Other Songs is the best album of Stern’s storied career. Which makes it even more miraculous, given the context of grief from which it springs.
Echoes and Other Songs could be considered a loving farewell to Jim Beard, who acted as Stern’s go-to producer for over three decades, and as a favorite keyboardist for even longer. “I’m not exaggerating when I call Jim Beard a genius,” Stern says. “People would say, ‘You should change up your producer — you know, just mix it up.’ And I would say, ‘Why?’ Everybody loved Jim. He was just great at what he did — how he used technology, how he produced, how he mixed.”
Stern goes on to describe Beard’s touch as a player. “Incredible.” He pauses. “Ridiculous. Everybody said he should be one of these guys who does a trio record every year. But I think he was shy, and he was such a perfectionist; everything he did was perfect. The records he came out with were amazing, but I think he could have done even more as a piano player.”
In the end, though, Stern was most affected by Beard’s devotion as a friend. “When I had the blues,” he recalls, “when I felt low and wanted to talk to somebody, he’s one of the people I would reach out to. It would be short, but he would know exactly what I was talking about. It’s a heartbreaker.”
Echoes also marks the first album Stern has released as a leader since the West Village jazz haunt 55 Bar closed its doors in 2022, a casualty of the pandemic. Stern’s regular gig there was legendary, enduring, and advantageous; it was at 55 where Michael Brecker became interested in hiring the guitarist.
Stern was still in Davis’ band when the scene in that bohemian basement started to coalesce, and over a span of nearly four decades, the beloved “Dump” provided a place for him to woodshed, experiment, showcase, and network whenever he was off the road. “They let me get away with murder, basically,” laughs Stern, who kept his gear there as if he’d moved in, stuffing it into shelving by the bathroom after each gig. “It was a great, great hang, and a great place to play and discover new stuff.”
His 55 residency provided a kind of physical therapy regimen after Stern broke both of his humerus bones in 2016. He stumbled over construction materials on the street in New York and fell, and the aftermath included potentially career-ending nerve damage that particularly threatened his picking hand. The road to recovery has been long, hard, and ongoing. Stern has had the abiding support of his wife, Leni, to help him, as well as godsends like Dr. Alton Barron, an orthopedic hand specialist recommended by a friend, fellow guitar master Wayne Krantz.
Advised by another pal, the drummer Ray Levier, Stern came up with an efficient system for holding his pick, using wig glue and tape. “It was a challenge and a half,” Stern says, “and it still is, sometimes, just to accept it. It gets me really upset and frustrated because I used to play stuff with my fingers. I had to change certain things about my technique.” Still, he pushes on and rises above, as he has throughout his career — like when he rejoined Miles Davis’ band in 1985, having found sobriety. Throughout Echoes, you’d be hard-pressed to find a second in which Stern’s chops are less than sublime. In terms of expressivity, his flatpicking has no limitations.
“I’m gonna keep trying with whatever I got,” Stern says. “You know I got to.”
“Because I love it,” he adds, “and love means that some days you hate it; those two sides are on the same coin. But the love is definitely winning out.” Consider Mike Stern’s Echoes and Other Songs his love letter to jazz, to the guitar, to bandstand camaraderie, and to his own undefeated will.