For the past 2 1/2 weeks, The Baked Potato has given guitar fans a stocking stuffer of treats. First up was blueser Joe Bonammasa, followed by rocker Steve Lukather, with the six string buffet closing out with jazzer Mike Stern serving as the anchor leg. If you took in all three artists, you were exposed to the breadth, width and depth of the joys of swinging the blues, with each artists exposing a different color of the six stringed palate.
Stern’s team of wife Leni on guitar and Malian ngoni, bassist Hadrien Feraud, drummer Dennis Chambers and tenor sax man Bob Franceschini emphasized the explorative and exotic side of jazz, with some amazing segues that led to other segues, and solos blending into other solos.
The opening “Like A Thief” mixed Ms. Stern’s exotic ngoni strums with a tasty rhythmic lilt as husband and wife shared vocals and lyrical solos. After that, both Sterns plugged in and bore down with Franceshini’s muscular tenor and Chambers’ kinetic brushes on the opening stages of “Out Of The Blue” that eventually had Feraud soloing and digging into a deep groove, setting it up for the leader to step out in front for a wildly expressive and adventurous solo that took the strings to worlds unknown.
The moody “Avenue B” featured Fracheschini’s tenor snarling around the two gliding guitars and drums and bass push/pulled the trudging them, while “What Might Have Been” evoked exotic themes of West Africa with haunting harmonies between husband and wife floating over Mike Stern’s harplike strums and Chambers’ rustling brushes.
Things got real funky on the riff fest of “Out Of The Blue” with some the them taking a journey of bluesy droplets of guitar dew to a misty fog of voice and tenor sax. The hectic and frantic “Tipitina’s” had the gents flexing their collective muscles as Stern and Franceschini went mano a mano around Chambers and Feraud’s jabs and punches.
Not wanting the set to end, Stern kept the long line of fans standing outside waiting even a bit longer as he snuck in the rocking blues of Jimi Hendrix’s “Red House”. The sparkling joy emitted from Sterns’ smile during the whole set, combined with a relentless desire to keep on playing showed why he, at 71, is still one of the masters of keeping the fusion fuse well lit and sparkling.
Upcoming shows at the Baked Potato include Donati-Machacek Band 12/12-27, Bunny Brunel 12/29, The Cranktones 12/30, Don Randi 12/31, The Lineage Trio 01/02