Mike Mainieri’s Steps Ahead, having slid towards stadium rock in the mid-eighties, has recently shown signs of returning to its first principle, namely fusion ‘unplugged’. If, on Vibe, the electric elements and backbeats remain, they are handled with sensitivity, Victor Bailey effecting a thudding, non-slapped sixties sound by picking at the upper end of the fingerboard rather than around the bridge, and the synth and clavinet being used only for subtle shading. Nevertheless, the pocket bass grooves, hip harmonic progressions and hip-hop colourations (like the scratch rhythm on Buzz) remind us that this is no bebop preservation society.
There are several superb compositions (such as Buzz, Light To Light and Vibe) and some turkeys (the funked up Green Dolphin Street doesn’t phrase very comfortably) and the uncluttered Milesian textures leave plenty of room for excellent solos, mostly from Mainieri, with one or two good moments for Cain and McCaslin.
Live, a product of the aforementioned stadium rock phase, is excessively heavy and loud, Beirut beginning like an outtake from the soundtrack to The Terminator. Nor was this the group’s strongest compositional period, but hidden in the dense thickets of sound are various clearings for some fine and extensive jazz soloing, notably from Stern, cloaking bebop in metal sonorities on Oops, from Brecker’s EWI trumpet patch on Beirut and Mainieri’s midivibe (a vibraphone which triggers a synth) on Sumo. Not to be dismissed out of hand.
Discography
Vibe
Buzz; From Light To Light; Penn Station; Vibe; Green Dolphin Street; Miles Away; Staircase; Rendezvous; Crunch; Waxing & Waning; Miles Away (61.21)
Mainieri (vib, p); Tim Hagans (t); Donny McCaslin (ss, ts); Aaron Heick (as); Michael Cain, Rachel Z (p, syn); Adam Holzman (syn, org, ciav); Victor Bailey (elb); James Genus, Reggie Washington (b); Clarence Penn (d). New York, c. 1995.
(NYC 6012 2)
Live In Tokyo 1986
Beirut; Oops; Self Portrait; Sumo; Cajun; Safari; In A Sentimental Mood; Trains (64.20)
Michael Brecker (ts, EWI); Mike Mainieri (vib); Mike Stern (elg); Daryl Jones (elb); Steve Smith (d). Kan-i Hoken Hall, Tokyo, July 30, 1986.
(NYC 6006 2)
