MIKE STERN'S UPCOMING CD, 'VOICES'

After nine albums of awe-inspiring chops, melodic and lyrical phrasing and sizzling six-string statements in all manner of contexts, what is there left to say? Mike Stern answered that question by digging deep and coming up with the album that has been inside of him for years.Voices, his tenth recording for Atlantic Jazz, is easily his most inspired outing to date. By organically melding his formidable guitar prowess into the fabric of engaging, uplifting vocal tunes, Stern stands poised to bring his own signature six-string voice to a wider audience in much the same way that Carlos Santana re-introduced himself to contemporary pop audiences with Supernatural . Stern's killer guitar work -- previously heard on recordings by Miles Davis, Steps Ahead, and the Brecker Brothers band -- is still very much intact onVoices. It's just in the service of the celebratory grooves and remarkably expressive voices that grace this world beat flavored project.

“I've always wanted to do a record with voices," says the Grammy-nominated guitarist. “Some of the tunes that I've written in the past, with tricky kind of beboppish heads, are just unsingable. But then there are some tunes of mine that singers have always mentioned to me that they liked very much...the more singable, lyrical tunes. And so I always thought it would be cool to hook up with singers and explore that further."

One of the primary inspirations for the project was Cameroonian bassist and vocalist extraordinaire Richard Bona, whom Mike had met some years back at a jazz festival in Israel. “I was there with the Mike Stern/Bob Berg Band and he was there playing with the Zawinul Syndicate. We ended up jamming that night back at the hotel room and later when he moved to New York we talked about getting together on a project. And we've just kept in touch over the years until we were finally able to realize this collaboration."

Through multiple overdubbing, Bona creates a triumphant vocal choir on the buoyant opener, “One World." Mike responds in kind with a typically heroic guitar solo, wailing freely within the densely woven fabric of this well-crafted piece. Bona also lends his appealing vocals to the relaxed groove of “The River," which is underscored by producer Jim Beard's churchy piano playing and sparked by Stern's earthy blues phrasing. Other singers who appear on Voices are Elizabeth Kontomanou, Arto Tuncboyaciyan and Philip Hamilton, formerly of Full Circle, a popular world beat group from the '80s. “The kind of voices that Richard, Arto and Philip have really appealed to me for this project," explains Stern. “They all can sing in a kind of falsetto voice that is so beautiful, like a soprano sax but, of course, better. There's no comparison to the human voice but I like that high register for these kind of melodies. And Elizabeth, interestingly enough, has a very low voice for a woman. so it's really a rich, soulful voice, which added another quality to the record."

Other guests on Voices include tenor sax giant Michael Brecker, drummer Dennis Chambers, bassists Chris Doky and Lincoln Goines, guitarist Jon Herington and the young tenor sax burner in Stern's current working band, Bob Franseschini.

“We went for more of a live approach than layering it all in the studio," says Stern. “We could've done this with sequencers and stuff but then you lose the burn factor from the live performance. We wanted to just play. And actually, it all went down smoothly in three days. And that's really what I wanted for this album -- the live vibe with real drums and piano in the same room and a little bit of leakage so that it sounds real."

VOICES (Atlantic)
Street date: September 4