![\"Issue39-eric-Johnson-Mike-stern\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Issue39-eric-Johnson-Mike-stern.jpg\")
<\/h1>\n<\/h1>\nBy Jeff Tamarkin<\/b><\/p>\n
By any measure, Eric Johnson and Mike Stern are two of the most accomplished guitarists in recent history, but it\u2019s doubtful anyone ever considered they\u2019d make an album together. Stern, after all, is a renowned jazz artist, having had his initial breakthrough in the \u201980s as a member of Miles Davis\u2019 band. Johnson, on the other hand, is a stone rocker\u2014a shredding wiz whose music incorporates myriad elements and influences.<\/p>\n
Each of their credentials is stunning. Johnson earned his first Grammy nomination in 1987. Four additional Grammy nods followed, including a Best Rock Instrumental Performance win in 1991 for his signature song, \u201cCliffs of Dover.\u201d Meanwhile, Stern is a six-time Grammy nominee who\u2019s been hailed by countless publications, including Downbeat<\/i>, which named him to its 75 Great Guitarists list.<\/p>\n
Longtime mutual admirers, Austin native Johnson and Boston-born Stern kicked around the idea of working together for a while. Eventually they did some gigs to see how it would go before heading to the studio for their new collaborative effort, Eclectic<\/i>. Recorded with Chris Maresh of Johnson\u2019s band on bass and Anton Fig of Late Show With David Letterman<\/i>\u2019s house band on drums, Eclectic<\/i>\u2019s dozen tracks\u2014including original songs by Johnson and Stern and a knockout remake of Jimi Hendrix\u2019s \u201cRed House\u201d\u2014find both guitarists creating powerful music that blurs genre distinctions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always dug the way Eric played, and his sound and sensibility,\u201d says Stern, 62. \u201cBut when we played together it was even more obvious. We got a really good sound.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adds Johnson, 60, who produced the album, \u201cMost people\u2019s first impression is that my thing is coming from rock and Mike is from jazz, but if you look inside our playing styles, you see there\u2019s something going on besides that. It really comes down to whether it\u2019s good music or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
How did you meet?<\/b><\/p>\n
STERN: Chris Maresh introduced us at B.B. King\u2019s in New York when Eric was playing. Chris said that Eric wanted to meet me, and maybe we could do something together. That was 10 years ago. Then a few years ago I did a record called Big Neighborhood <\/i>and asked Eric to play on it. That was the first time we played together.<\/p>\n
JOHNSON: I had actually seen Mike play with Miles Davis many years ago, and he was such a colorful player. I was really impressed with that. After I played on Big Neighborhood<\/i>, we both wanted to do something but we were busy and it never happened. Then the [New York jazz club] Blue Note called and said, \u201cHey, do you want to do some gigs?\u201d and that was the start.<\/p>\n
STERN: After the Blue Note we did a short East Coast tour. Then we did the record together and another tour, which was really fun.<\/p>\n
How do you mesh your styles?<\/b><\/p>\n
STERN: We give each other lots of space. We\u2019re eager to hear each other play. We\u2019re listening to each other so it works out musically. Also the texture of our sounds on the electric guitar is similar. Eric has a really cool piano thing happening sometimes on the guitar because he plays piano, so he has amazing voicings.<\/p>\n
JOHNSON: Our sounds are pretty different. A lot of Mike\u2019s sound is in the middle registers, and mine tends to be more of a bass and treble thing. He fits somewhere in between my sound. It brings a deeper dimension to the music when you hook up with someone who does something you don\u2019t, or is more proficient in areas where you might just touch the surface. It\u2019s inspiring\u2014plus I can steal stuff from him.<\/p>\n
STERN: One common denominator we have is that we want a sound that\u2019s got a lot of air. Whenever you\u2019ve got two chord instruments in a band, either somebody\u2019s got to lay out or you\u2019ve got to really be careful when you come up together. You\u2019ve got to leave a lot of stuff out and play more softly \u00a0beneath the soloist.<\/p>\n
The album touches on several genres.<\/b><\/p>\n
STERN: Totally. I\u2019ve always thought that there are many common denominators between jazz and rock. Now it\u2019s nearly normal for jazz guitar players to have rock influences. Part of that is just the nature of the guitar\u2014it\u2019s in nearly every genre: pop, country, rock. Guitar players have the possibility of including more styles in their music.<\/p>\n
JOHNSON: Mike is predominantly a jazz player but he\u2019s a different kind of jazz player because most of his repertoire, vision and feel come from horn players more than guitar players. So he has a little different slant on the way he plays his lines. Plus he\u2019s got a lot of soul and fire.<\/p>\n
How did you approach the recording?<\/b><\/p>\n
JOHNSON: We recorded it at my studio in Austin. It\u2019s a nice big room we could all set up in and just play together. We both brought ideas and arranged them together so we had a hand in morphing them. It was more of a free exchange\u2014everybody offered their input once we brought it to the studio. We cut the whole thing in three or four days\u2014pretty much live\u2014and spent another week or two mixing. We fixed and overdubbed a few little things but tried to do that as little as possible.<\/p>\n
STERN: Pretty much we just hit it. I re-recorded some tunes that I already had, which I thought would sound good with that instrumentation, especially with Eric. Eric also did some of his own tunes. We also both wrote a couple of new tunes and rehearsed and recorded them. It happened really fast\u2014the first or second take was usually cool. It\u2019s always better to get everybody into the studio at the same time, because so many ideas and arrangements come while you\u2019re rehearsing. Sometimes there are last-minute changes. When everybody chimes in, it\u2019s very organic.<\/p>\n
JOHNSON: There are things I might have done differently, but maybe it\u2019s good that I didn\u2019t because it was an exercise for me to play live in the studio. If you embark on that it might take a little time for that muscle to get stronger, but I\u2019d rather do that than go back and think, \u201cLet me redo it.\u201d We made a conscious decision to just leave it.<\/p>\n
Why cover Hendrix\u2019s \u201cRed House\u201d?<\/b><\/p>\n
JOHNSON: My first thought was that there have been so many recordings of \u201cRed House,\u201d do we need to do another? But it was 100 percent fun. It wasn\u2019t any kind of statement. We just wanted to play the tune. Mike wanted to do some singing. We put it at the end of the album so it would be a joyous encore.<\/p>\n
STERN: Hendrix always had the blues in his music. I heard it right away in him. That\u2019s part of the reason I always thought there was some similarity between jazz and some rock\u2014it was coming from blues. The big common denominator is the blues. All the cats I really dig who I\u2019ve gotten the chance to play with or I\u2019ve listened to, blues is all over the place.<\/p>\n
What have you learned from each other during this project?<\/b><\/p>\n
JOHNSON: I know about harmony and theory, but when it gets deep into jazz changes and soloing through more difficult changes I can do it, but Mike\u2019s fluent. He doesn\u2019t even have to think about it. There are certain places where that\u2019s the case with me. It\u2019s about learning more about music.<\/p>\n
STERN: A lot of stuff Eric does is kind of tricky. He\u2019s coming from a different place, doing some pedal steel and banjo licks. Some of his playing and some of his voicings remind me of Bill Frisell. What Eric has going on is different from what I\u2019ve prioritized for so many years. He takes me back to other aspects of the guitar because I\u2019ve been so focused on getting horn lines and different phrasing on the guitar. He\u2019s just a soulful cat. He rocks like crazy\u2014he can do all that\u2014but he\u2019s also a very sensitive accompanist.<\/p>\n
Dream collaboration, past or present?<\/b><\/p>\n
STERN: John Coltrane, but I\u2019d be happy just being the guy who changes his sax reeds. And Hendrix would have been amazing.<\/p>\n
JOHNSON: I\u2019d love to play with Stevie Wonder. But I\u2019d try anything with anybody who was up for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ERIC JOHNSON & MIKE STERN Two guitar wizards on one album mean twice the musical magic By Jeff Tamarkin By any measure, Eric Johnson and Mike Stern are two of the most accomplished guitarists in recent history, but it\u2019s doubtful anyone ever considered they\u2019d make an album together. Stern, after all, is a renowned jazz […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3805],"tags":[7678,7623],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14775,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14773\/revisions\/14775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}