It's a bummer having to leave Marcus Miller's concert at the Olympia during intermission but Mike Stern is playing the New Morning and I haven't seen him since a blistering gig at the 55 Bar in New York back in December 1999...
As an added treat, Randy Brecker is on trumpet tonight and erstwhile Journey drummer Steve Smith is behind the kit. To say the evening was highly virtuosic would be an understatement, but the musicianship never came at the expense of the musicality. I wasn't familiar with most of the material in the setlist but it didn't matter one bit.
Mike had his eyes closed most of the time, playing away as if in a trance, channeling Miles, Trane and Jimi for a packed audience.
This was music in its purest expression: language and ideas generously pouring out into the audience, and the feeling to have witnessed a master at work.
