01 Sunnyside
02 The Vine
03 Wing and a Prayer
04 Lose the Suit
05 You Never Know
06 Tell Me
07 With a Twist
08 True Enough
09 Pages
10 Bait Tone Blues

Mike Stern - guitar
Dave Weckl - drums
Jeff Andrews - bass
Bob Malach - saxophone
Jim Beard - keyboards
Lincoln Goines (6,7) - bass
Dennis Chambers (6,7) - drums


Review by Daniel Gioffre
Mike Stern does what he does very, very well.
He has carved out a unique niche for himself among modern
fusion guitarists, a vision that combines funk and
R&B bass/drum grooves with skittish melodies often involving
extended chord fragments. Stern's lead voice is one of the
most distinctive in the genre as well, as his chorused and
sometimes distorted tone is always prominently displayed.
Stern is joined on this 1996 offering by frequent collaborator
Bob Malach, a tenor player with a particular talent for laying
screaming lines on top of smoking drum grooves as well as ably
doubling and bringing to life Stern's often bookish and
theoretical melodies. Completing the band are twin rhythm
sections, consisting either of Dave Weckl and Jeff Andrews
or Lincoln Goines and Dennis Chambers. Like many of Stern's
recordings, the problems lie generally in the sameness of the
arrangements and the relatively forgettable nature of some
of these songs. Although they are all thoughtfully composed,
they sometimes tend to run together a bit in the mind of the
listener. Jim Beard's keyboard textures also could be done
without, as they add a distracting sheen to the compositions.
But there has always been this sort of tension in Stern's
work between the obvious and the unexpected. Take, for example,
"Lose the Suit," which features an extremely funky intro and
a great Stern solo, as well as an extremely predictable bridge
that almost sounds as if it could be the theme song to a
long-running soap opera. Any lingering sense of treacle is
dispelled once Stern kicks in the fuzz, however, and lays into
the track. Not the best thing he's ever done, but quite good,
and sure to please fans.


EAC extraction logfile from 12. May 2006, 21:07 for CD
Mike Stern / Between the Lines

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End of status report