Mike Stern – The Interview – Part 1

Mike, usually you have a sax player in your band. For the upcoming gigs in India, you have keyboards instead; do you approach the tunes any differently in this type of a setup?

No, it’s kind of similar. I mean, there’s little bit more piano behind me which I do on my records also, but it’s fun, I don’t it much with a keyboard, I’ve done some and it’s really fun. He (Louis Banks) basically takes the saxophone sections. Sometimes he tries to match a guitar sound or a little bit of a saxophone kind of an attitude but basically I think we’re just experimenting. Sometimes it’s an organ sound which is great, that always works and sometimes piano and sometimes little bits of synthesizer. He’s kinda finding his way too, but it’s kinda great, I like that, because it’s fresh for me.

But otherwise you’ve always had a sax player, right?

Most of the time it’s saxophone. Randy Brecker has been playing with me a lot lately, I’ve been grabbing him and we’re doing some touring. Coming up I’m doing some touring with Bob Malach on saxophone, Richard Bona and Dave Weckl. But for the summer tour, it’s Chris Minh Doki with Randy Brecker and Dave Weckl.

How did you hook up with Steve Vai and Eric Johnson on Big Neighborhood?

I’d been thinking about that for a long time, I thought it would be a great hook up and I actually talked to Eric a long time ago, but Steve was kind of a fresh thing and I said let me call him this time ‘coz I’ve been thinking about it for the last bunch of records and I thought maybe it would be cool just to hook up with him and do something, so lemme call him this time ‘coz I got a couple of tunes that I think would be perfect with him. I picked the right tunes and he killed them! I think he would have played great with anything, y’know, ‘his’ style which is very different than mine, my priorities are kinda different but we also overlap.

It’s the Hendrix connection..

Hendrix and blues and he’s got some jazz in his playing too. He went to Berklee, which I didn’t even know and he told me he used to hear me playing at Berklee. He went after me and I used to play some gigs in Boston and he used to come and check me out sometimes, so I was like wow. But yeah, he’s smoking, he’s always impressed me, like when I heard him in different situations - not as a jazz player but like with Zappa and in his rock stuff, it was just the Eddie Van halen kinda vibe but quirkier – a little bit stranger. He also just seemed to have a lotta control over what he did even though it sounded wild, it was very ‘controlled wild’ and sometimes ‘very’ controlled, like did you hear that theme on the movie he did, Crossroads?

Oh yeah, the Paganini caprice

So I asked him about that, I said ‘Are you a classical guitar player?’ he said ‘No, I just learned the piece on electric’. It was so long ago, but I remember telling him that it was amazing.

So you knew these guys personally, from before?

Eric I knew, Steve I knew of. We knew of each other and had mutual friends and stuff so when I called him it was like, he’s such an easy to get along with. And Eric too, I met him and he’s such a sweet guy, really nice cat, really down home and y’know, kind of very ‘no-attitude’. So I knew him a little bit and I actually asked him about even doing some gigs together and doing a record and then this record came through. I think most of the time when I do gigs I like to have other, well I haven’t done too much with other guitar players, but I love playing with saxophone ‘coz it’s a different instrument or piano, for that matter, if it’s a different instrument it pushes me in a different direction, you find different ideas. I transcribe a lot of saxophone, and piano, I check that shit out.

Do you think you’ll ever do a complete vocal album, with lyrics in English?

No, probably not, not like that unless I get Sting and I think he’s got his own thing happening (laughs) But I know people have taken my instrumental tunes and some of them have written English words to them, its kinda cool and interesting, but I like the sound of vocalese. Richard actually wrote Doula lyrics for one of my songs on These Times. He told me what the story was about and it was very sad and it fit the song, but to me it just sounds beautiful the way he sings his language. Richard’s a very special cat, great bass player and special person.

A great entertainer as well!

Yeah, he’s funny, he’s good!

Going back to your earlier days, how did you get into jazz from rock and blues? How did Berklee contribute to that?

I got pushed more at Berklee because that’s kinda why I went there, to learn, but I was already into the music. My mom used to play a lot of jazz records around the house, so I was exposed to it pretty early and of course jazz is a huge thing, but I remember I fell in love with Maiden Voyage, that record was one of the first ones and she used to play some Stan Getz, Miles, Dave Brubeck, pretty melodic but beautiful. I just liked the way it felt and then friends of mine had things that were more adventurous records, so I started getting into those and of course, Bitches Brew, In A Silent Way.

So when I went to Berklee I wanted to learn that. I felt like my rock and blues playing was okay but I was in a rut, I was just in a rut musically, I wanted to learn more about music. So I went to try and learn as much about jazz as possible ‘coz I figured that’s a real challenge for me, it’s harder for me, like I didn’t grow up listening to that as much and it’s also more intricate music, which for me doesn’t make it better, it’s just different - anything that’s from the heart is cool. So I really got into jazz and the more I got into it, the more I fell in love with it. I started checking out everybody - Wes of course, Jim Hall, Joe Pass and Benson. I went and heard George Benson play some, without singing, this was before he started singing, man, he would sing like one tune and basically he was an instrumentalist and he was unbelievable! He still is unbelievable, one of the greatest jazz guitar players alive, he just doesn’t do it much but when you hear him, when he’s getting warmed up, forget it man! It’s unbelievable.

How big a difference did being in a disciplined environment like Berklee make?

It helped me, because I kinda needed it at that time, but what helped me probably just as much, probably more, ‘coz over the years it was just getting into that groove. Then I went on and just found a teacher. So, people can do it with one teacher, y’know and then there were so many schools and so much knowledge out there that’s available now. So, you can do it with one or two teachers, I just recommend always finding a teacher, wherever you are, you can always find somebody.

I did find one, he went to MI (Sanjay Divecha)

Oh (laughs) so you can learn some of that stuff then, great.

How did you manage working on the lessons given by Charlie Banacos, with all the touring and recording?

He gave me specific lessons and I just did the best I could. I couldn’t do as much as he asked from most students but he said ok, well I know you are touring, but just do what you can, ‘coz I knew him for so many years, I studied with him for like, 30 years. Also, even when I was studying with him I seemed to lean towards going slower, more at my own pace even though he would give me a lot of stuff, so you just keep doing the best you can. It’s all good. If you focus enough and you kind of, have some direction from a pretty good teacher all of it is in the plus. It may not be perfect, it may not be ‘oh man, I didn’t use every hour of every day just as perfectly as I could!’ y’know, if you’re practicing and you are focused, not just practicing what you know, but trying to practice new stuff, then when you practice what you know which you can always do too, you get better at it, you push yourself to get better, so it’s work but it’s all good. Charlie was amazing, he was just so inspiring, it wasn’t about career so much or this or that, it was just about music.