Like so many great jazz artists, guitarist Mike Stern got his big break playing with jazz legend Miles Davis. Over the past 25 years, he has become a first rate performer, composer, and bandleader in his own right with fifteen albums to his credit. Still, very few artists have the draw to book a six night stand at Blues Alley. While the word "supergroup" may be a bit cheesy, it's an accurate description of the quartet Stern brought to Blues Alley this week in support of his latest release, Who Let the Cats Out?. These guys can flat out play and last night they provided us with ninety minutes of strong grooves, playful melodies, and, of course, some mind blowing solos.

The front line of the group consisted of Stern and tenor saxophonist Bob Franceschini, whose aggressive and in-your-face tone provided a strong and effective contrast to Stern's more airy and open sound. Similarly, drummer Dennis Chambers and Flecktones bassist Victor Wooten formed a very complimentary musical relationship: Wooten often played solid and relatively simple bass lines to support Chambers' complex metric modulation and beat displacement. These two players revolutionized their respective instruments and are a big part of the reason why the house was packed.

The music can be characterized as contemporary fusion in the sense that unlike the classic fusion of the 1970s, such as John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, these compositions were more melodic and did not employ any odd meters. The music may not have been as challenging as the fusion of yore, but the spirited performance kept the audience's attention through arrangements that varied the mood within each song. In fact, the playing was so strong that at some points people just shook their heads in awe of the jaw dropping technique. Each member of the band got plenty of room to stretch out, and stretch out they did. Importantly, while there were many notes played, the music never seemed self-indulgent. The musicians were skilled and mature enough to make sure that technique never interfered with the almighty groove. There was not a single moment during the show where we could not tap our feet or bob our head.

Photo taken from Mike Stern's MySpace page.

Most of the songs came from Who Let the Cats Out?. The album is a pleasurable listen and features some excellent playing, but at points it verges on being overproduced. The tunes really opened up in the live setting where a true band dynamic was apparent. The opening number, the barn burner "Tumble Home," became a 30-minute workout with each bandmember playing a lengthy solo. The arrangement went from uptempo straight ahead jazz, to funk, to brush accompanied ballad. The song kept the audience engaged for the full half-hour and that is testimony to the strength of the band.

On the album, the song "Language" features the vocals of bassist Richard Bona and is also his showcase when he plays live with the quartet. The band made up for his absence by opening the tune with a gorgeous improvised duet between Stern and Wooten. Another highlight was the closing tune which opened with a drum/bass duet and then went on to feature Chambers playing a powerhouse solo that mixed varying subdivisions of time over a repeating guitar and bass line. By the end of the tune, the crowd was on its feet.

We recognize that Blues Alley can be hard on the wallet, but anyone with more than a passing interest in music should make every effort to head down to the club and check out this quartet. Unfortunately, the opportunity to catch Victor Wooten has passed as he is returning home to do some recording with Bela Fleck and catch his son's baseball game (awww). The great Richard Bona will be taking his place and will surely put on a great show.

Oh yeah, at one point we think we saw Dennis Chambers flub a beat. It's nice to know that he's human.

The Mike Stern Quartet will perform 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. sets this Friday through Sunday at Blues Alley. Visit the club's web site for ticket information.