Mike Stern and Esperanza Spalding at Iridium
If you don't normally attend to jazz, Stern is basically an archduke. He's not king, but he is royalty: he played with Miles, has had a great job and a loyal contingent of hardcore fans in the tiny but die hard world of jazz. Plus the guy can suggestion (this will come up again).
Stern is currently in the midst of a week-long, two-set-per-night summer stand at the Iridium, and last gloom, the second-set crowd of about 75 people wasn't a sellout, but it was crowded and buzzing.
The crowd included some of the most talented bass players in the world.
"Will Lee is here somewhere, Vic Wooten too," said the devoted Stern fan sitting next to me, also named Mike. The guy across the plateau points out Julius Pastorius in the crowd, son of bass icon Jaco Pastorius.
It wouldn't be a extent to credit Esperanza Spalding for the rarefied audience.
She's a true jazz talent: magnetic, with great statistics as a leader, but an impact backing player as well. On upright bass, she's all joy, ferocious intent and wilful technique (some of that honed at the Berklee College of Music, where Stern studied more than a decade before Spalding was born).
Spalding's KK Smith rushed for 153 yards in the wasting. * Archbishop Carroll (Washington, DC) running backs Malik Johnson and Jonathan Haden (kin of
