Stephen Johnston – Show review – June 21, 2009

Q: What do you get when you cross the harmonic sensibilities of a John Coltrane, the spidery speed and legato of an Allan Holdsworth and the “devil may care” attitude of a Jeff Beck?

A: Stephen Johnston!

At least that’s the impression I came away with after watching Stephen Johnston and his group play to a packed club during Montreal’s “Off-Jazz” Festival. To use a comedic term, Stephen and his band “killed”, with lots of whooping and hollering from a very enthusiastic audience testifying to that.

For those unfamiliar with who Stephen Johnston is, he’s a local Montreal Guitar talent who has made it his mission in life to combine his passion of heady Jazz improvisation, think Coltrane and Cannonball, with his love of shredding ala Van Halen, Beck, Holdsworth and Malmsteen. And while Stephen is ever the Jazz Guitar purist, digging cats like Howard Roberts, Joe Pass and others of that ilk, there’s a part of his musical identity that needs to add some overdrive and string bending every now and then.

This is exactly what he did last Saturday the 21 of June, 2009 as Stephen and the boys opened an all original set with “London”, a catchy Rock N’ Roll style tune that featured the clean but gnarly tone of Stephens hot-rodded Stevenson Strat. Stephen’s light use of the vibrato bar captured a Holdsworth feel while the bridge to the tune was reminiscent of Jeff Beck’s early Blow by Blow/Wired years. Stephen’s blowing brought a lot of cheering from the predominantly male audience, although I’m sure the ladies were just as impressed…:)

Next up was the groove tune “Detroit” with Stephen playing some serious Jimmy Nolen type funk rhythms that had heads nodding and feet tapping. This tune had a real 70’s vibe to it thanks in part to Keyboardist David Ryshpan, who laid down an early Spyro Gyro-ish soundscape. The rest of the band, Mark Nelson on drums, Mark Haynes on electric bass and Evens Baptiste on percussion contributed greatly to the 70’s vibe with some nice tight drumming, slap bass, and rhythmic percussion. A killer tune that allowed Stephen to stretch his chops with some double-time legato lines racing through the changes.

Changing pace a bit, the third tune, a moody Bossa titled “Special K”, featured Keyboardist Ryshpan, with his “Rhodes” sound adding nicely to the mood of the piece. Stephen’s clean melody shimmered with the help of his vibrato bar. Bassist Haynes kept the atmosphere low key as he manipulated his bass strings with muted, soft “thumps”. Stephen stayed away from blowing on this song allowing Rysphan room to stretch, which he did quite nicely.

Up next was the tune “Nasty” which lived up to its name delightfully. Stephen let loose his rock roots on this one starting with a quite complex head played in unison with Rysphan, who had a very cool “buzz-saw” synth sound going on harking back to the Jeff Beck/Jan Hammer days. As mentioned, Stephen pulled out all the stops on this one as whammy bar bends, octaver manipulated tones, quick fingered lines and sweep picking stole the show. Rysphan also got in some nice expressive lines with the use of his pitch/mod wheel while bass, drums and percussion locked the groove in tight. Definitely a highlight of the show!

The next four tunes, “Blue Sojo”, “PUFO”, “Forgive Me” and “OPUS MUC” delivered the same skill and intensity of the previous tunes. “Blue Sojo”, with its phase-shifter melody, bluesy string bends and hammer-ons rocked hard and had a great energy from all concerned. “PUFO”, which, according to Stephen, is an Irish expression to “pack up and F-off”, had a nice spacey sound courtesy of Rysphan’ sound-fonts, with Stephen once again nodding to Jeff Beck.

The second to last tune of the evening was a Pop vocal tune sung by Mr. Stephen Johnston himself titled “Forgive Me”. Stephen’s vocals sounded somewhat Dylan-esque to me and there was even a hint of The Band floating around. Although, this could have just been me since I don’t really listen to a lot of vocal groups and have very little to reference this by. Suffice it to say, Stephen did a fine job handling vocal duties and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the tune made it to radio.

The last tune, “OPUS MUC”, brought Stephen back on smokin’ guitar with this Jeff Beck influenced tune. Unlike a Beck tune however, there was nice middle Swing section that upped the Jazz ante more than a tad. There was also a nice Pink Floyd feel at times which added to the breathiness of the tune along with the always present 70’s vibe.

The end of the show brought a roaring cheer from the crowd and if there wasn’t a time constraint in getting ready for the next act, I have no doubt that a couple of encores would have been enthusiastically requested. A great show all around!

This was my second time seeing Stephen Johnston in action. The first time was a few years ago when he played a more traditional Jazz gig. And while that was an impressive display of his jazz language skills, I’m glad that I got to see Stephen play his a** off in a combination of styles that still excite him to this day. Like John McGaughlin, Mike Stern, John Scofield, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell and even Jim Hall, there’s no denying that elements of many styles can co-exist within the hearts and minds of talented individuals. The result being a celebratory discovery of sounds and ideas that make up one’s unique voice on their instrument. Thankfully, Stephen Johnston has made peace with both sides of his musical identity, which works for me!