Brent Mason and Mike Stern together in Nashville - LOTS of tele content :-)

Great players all, but Brent totally tore that one to shreds!

Carlock rules.

 

blue water girl you were missed. Thanks for posting the video. I know you are justifiably proud.

Lost_N_Austin

 

Glad you stopped by and posted that. Relevance still comes through.

Thanks.

 

Not fender branded, but still a Tele to me. Just like John Mayer plays a prs strat

 

I used to play Mr. PC. Didn't sound like that though!

 

thanks for posting! pretty cool!

 

The contrast is stunning. To my ears Mike Stern has terrible tone and just noodles and wheedles away, boring me to death and sounding like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Meanwhile, Mr. Mason plays tastefully with great tone and actually manages to phrase in a manner that is pleasing to the ear and goes somewhere without just endless noodling.

Maybe it's just me but I really can't understand how Mike Stern ever became a "guitar god" type of music celebrity. I don't get it at all. I was in a band that played Tipatina's, and that
is a pretty good tune, so I'll give him props for that. What helps him in his original recording of that song is he is playing a pre-set melody for the bulk of it, which really cuts down on the aimless wankery.

 

Mikes had his own Yamaha T style for years. Brent’s been listening to Pat Martino! Nice stuff!!

 

I wouldn't put it that way. What Stern plays makes sense and IMHO his lines are interesting. His tone is, well his tone. When I was exploring jazz in the late 80s there where three guitar players that were very hip: John Scofield, Bill Frisell and Mike Stern. That was before the "young lion" thing that brought back archtops straight into an amp I think. All of them used heavily processed sounds, lots of chorus, delay, reverb, distortion and compression. While Scofield and Frisell somehow got over that (I'd say developed and still stayed recognisable), Stern somehow kept that kind of sound. Chalk it up as continuity or demean it. I think he won't care ‘cause he probably sounds just like he wants.

 

There's a video on youtube of Frisell playing little surfer girl by his self on an esquire and it's great. If you haven't seen it check it out.

 

Now he's living in Brent's world. I love his tone. He always knows what to play to fit the song. And plays over the chord changes which just sits on the ear drum perfectly.

 

I remember seeing Stern play with Miles Davis on late night TV. This was in the early 80s, I was about 14. For a kid growing up in the sticks it was revelatory. He was playing a white Strat fwiw.

 

I agree that they are two different approaches. I so wish I could have seen Brent while I was in Nashville early April!!.
But what I hear is a smooth and processed frosting by Stern, and an articulate and highly accurate presence by Brent. He hangs with everyone and no matter what the genre or style he is truly a master of his craft over and over again and again. So clean and refined yet this is all improv. That speaks volumes on his level of mastery of the guitar and the style. Its really not fair to compare a straight up jazz player to Brent because he is and has had to be an adaptable and versatile player for so long that his abilities have become second nature. The key here is that while he does not live in that universe he can walk in and speak the language like a true native to the environment. That's just how he rolls. What an inspiration to us all!!

 

Hmmmm. I've been listening to Pat M. for 35 years now, and I still don't sound like him OR Brent...

 

Well there’s something you don’t see every day.

Mike Stern did a clinic at Atlanta Institute of Music back in 1999 while I was there. Super nice guy. He is the reason I got really into studying Jazz (and Telecasters). He played Autumn Leaves and played really out and turned on distortion and stuff; Much more aggressive than I’d ever seen a guitar player approach a standard at that time in my life. It was a revelation to me. I was a clone for a few years. Stereo Chorus with two amps, Delay, Tele with a neck humbucker. All that. Now I’m not into that kind of tone at all (Tele straight into a cranked tube amp now) but it’s always nice to hear him play. He has crazy chops.