Once a musician, always a musician. At 71, jazz guitarist Mike Stern is still jetsetting to perform around the world.
Even though Stern had to leave the next day for a week-long stint at the Alternative Guitar Summit camp—where he would do clinics and perform alongside giants of the modern jazz world including John Scofield and Kurt Rosenwinkel—he invited me over that night to his Gramercy Park apartment to discuss his debut Mack Avenue Records release, Echoes and Other Songs.
As I set up my recording equipment, Stern was also busy setting up. He opened his Boss BCB-60 pedalboard case and connected his pedals to his well-worn Yamaha SPX90II, then routed the setup into a pair of Fender Twin Reverb reissues. “I just want to set my stuff up so I can practice later,” explains Stern. He was very generous with his time, and our interview concluded around midnight. As I headed out, Stern was just beginning his hours-long, late-night shedding session.
This relentless drive and obsessive discipline are the keys to Stern’s “chops of doom,” his nearly half-century reign as one of the world’s most celebrated jazz-fusion guitarists, and his remarkable road to recovery from a horrific accident that happened eight years ago.
Mike Stern - "Echoes"
In the Aftermath
In the summer of 2016, Stern tripped and fell over improperly stowed construction equipment while crossing the street, and broke his humeri (both of the arm bones that extend from the shoulder to the elbow). His right hand suffered permanent nerve damage, which caused it to become bent like a claw, making it so that he can no longer do some things like fingerpick and pinch harmonics. Stern’s legendary fluid picking style also became choppy, and he’s had to work extremely hard over the years to get it to flow smoothly again. “It’s still frustrating as hell,” admits Stern. “You didn’t have to think about the technique so much because you’ve been doing it for years, and then all of a sudden, now you have to spend energy and brain power on it. But it’s getting more natural as I keep doing it.”
“You didn’t have to think about the technique so much because you’ve been doing it for years, and then all of a sudden, you have to spend energy and brain power on it.”
Equally devastating is the mental toll from the accident, which Stern is still coping with. “I was really nervous to do the record at all. I was trying to give myself every excuse to get out of it. I thought, ‘Oh my hands are gonna cramp up because I’ll be nervous.’ My hands cramp up because of this injury,” says Stern. “It’s more in my mind. But that’s what I’m going through sometimes because of this. It’s really serious. I’m the only guitar player in the world that’s using glue—wig glue—to hold a pick. Everybody says they can’t hear the difference [in my playing] but I really feel it.”
Despite his initial, anxiety-driven apprehension, Echoes and Other Songs might be Stern’s best studio album yet. “I thought all the solos sucked and I’d have to go back and do everything again,” confesses Stern. “Then I listened back and, first of all, I can’t change it because it was all recorded live with the band, and then I said, ‘Thank God I don’t need to.’”
Stern’s new record features a slate of impressive collaborators, who gathered to cut the album in New York City.
Hitting with the Heavyweights
As typical for a Mike Stern record, Echoes and Other Songs features a star-studded lineup of musicians. The luxury of recording with some of the world’s best musicians comes at a price. “The problem was getting those guys to rehearse because everyone’s so busy,” says Stern. “We got one rehearsal with Jim [Beard, producer], myself, Antonio [Sanchez, drummer], and Chris Potter [saxophonist]. No Christian McBride [bassist]—so we ran the tunes without bass,” says Stern. “We finally got Christian to do it the very night before. He had some time and drove all the way in [from New Jersey], and there was a ton of traffic because there was a baseball game or something, and he was late, but he still made it. We got together for like an hour-and-a-half that night and went over everything. He already had it together.”
The next day at BerkleeNYC’s Power Station Studios, they recorded straight through without listening back. It was mostly one to three takes of a tune—maybe four at most, if something was tricky. Stern explains, “We didn’t have that much time—we only had two days to do eight tunes! That’s kind of a lot, especially because it’s very live and we had never played together.”
“I’m the only guitar player in the world that’s using glue—wig glue—to hold a pick.”
Stern did two days with that rhythm section, and the second session had Beard, Richard Bona on bass and vocals, Dennis Chambers on drums, and Bob Franceschini on sax. This was also intended to be a two-day session, but they finished the three tunes in one day, and were wise enough to leave it alone. (Later overdubs included Mike’s wife, Leni, on ngoni, a West African stringed instrument, and Arto Tunçboyacıyan on percussion.)
Over the years, Stern had worked with all of the musicians on the album, with the exception of Sanchez, who entered the picture at Beard’s suggestion. He had just played a session with Sanchez, and Stern recalls, “Jim said, ‘Wow, that cat is playing his ass off.’ I was like, ‘No shit, of course.’ I’m aware of him but we never played. Beard said, ‘It would be a really good hookup because Antonio’s such a great jazz player; he really follows you.’ And he did exactly that, he really followed me, especially on the first tune ‘Connections.’ All of it. He was right there for all the soloists.”
Mike Stern's Gear
Improvising isn’t just for the fretboard: A 2016 accident permanently damaged Stern’s right hand, forcing him to relearn how to play the instrument—a process that’s still ongoing.
Photo by Sandrine Lee
Guitar
- Yamaha Pacifica 1511MS Mike Stern
Amp
- Fender ’65 Twin Reverb reissue
Effects
- Yamaha SPX90II
- Boss SD-1 (as boost with level all the way up, drive all the way off, and tone at 11:00)
- Boss SD-1W (as drive with level at 11:00, drive at 1:00, tone at 2:00, and mode switch set to C)
- Boss DD-3T
- Boss MO-2
- Boss TU-3
- Vemuram Jan Ray
- Truetone power supply with daisy chain cables
- Boss BCB-60 pedalboard
Strings and Picks
- D’Addario (.011–.013–.015–.026–.032–.038)
- D’Addario heavy picks
Beauty in Simplicity
Like most accomplished jazz musicians, Stern has spent countless hours shedding complex tunes. He’ll regularly practice John Coltrane’s “26-2” with Leni at home, and has recorded Coltrane’s challenging “Moment’s Notice” on several jazz-oriented CDs. But unless Stern is specifically recording an acoustic-jazz album like his 1992 release, Standards (and Other Songs), he generally prefers to keep it simple for his studio albums.
“I like to write so you don’t have to have a slide ruler to figure it out. That’s just my take,” says Stern. “I mean, some of the stuff that I hear that’s more complex, it’s gorgeous. I’m not taking that away. But when you have a limited amount of time for a band, you have to kind of keep it realistic. You have to make it kind of simple because most of the time they’re not going to have time to really learn some hard shit. I like to do that anyway because it’s more fun for me and for everybody else to play. It’s not so fun to show up and have to play ‘Giant Steps’ backwards and in three different keys.”
“I like to write so you don’t have to have a slide ruler to figure it out.”
You’ll often hear common forms like blues and minor blues disguised with the Stern touch on his albums. “Could Be,” the closing track on Echoes and Other Songs, is a quirky contrafact on the very familiar jazz standard “It Could Happen to You.”
“Connections,” another song in the collection, “has a blowing section that’s easy so people can take off on it,” says Stern. “It’s almost got a McCoy Tyner vibe; I always think of ‘Passion Dance’ in a way.” Since “Connections” didn’t require extraneous brain power to calculate unexpected chord changes or odd meters, the musicians were a lot freer and more relaxed, and the results are astounding. Stern says, “Man, Chris Potter, whew—he just tore it up on that track.”
Stern’s signature Yamaha electric has been his go-to for decades. Combined with a pair of Twin Reverbs, it takes him wherever he needs to go.
Photo by Chris Marroquin
“Gospel Song,” the second single from Echoes, is a ballad inspired by the down-to-earth music Stern heard growing up in Washington, D.C. “All you heard there was soul music, basically. It was so cool to live there and hear that music and it got me right away,” says Stern. “I used to listen to a lot of Motown and some church-y kind of stuff is in Motown or soul music.”
“Curtis,” which features Bona singing and Stern making an appearance on backing vocals, pays homage to a soul-music legend. “It’s got the vibe of a Curtis Mayfield tune in a kind of loose way. He’s one of my favorite composers,” says Stern. “You didn’t have to think too hard. It would just get into your heart.”
Fitting Farewell
Sadly, producer Jim Beard passed away in March 2024, several months before the album’s release. In addition to working with the likes of Steely Dan and Pat Metheny, among others, Beard had played an enormous role in Stern’s studio albums over the past several decades. “He played on ‘Chromazone,’” recalls Stern, referencing his most famous tune from the 1988 album Time in Place. Beard also produced numerous Stern albums, starting with 1991’s Odds or Evens. “He produced and mixed the stuff too, even though we had engineers. He’s amazing and had such an incredible ear. It was a shock to lose him,” says Stern.
Fittingly, “Crumbles,” Stern’s most adventurous studio track to date, features Beard, who adds a hauntingly introspective touch to the song’s mood. “The tune is a little quirky and has some humor in it. I like some of the things I was trying to do writing-wise and Christian really dug it. We were in the studio and we said, ‘Everybody’s been playing here and there but Jim hasn’t really gotten any features, so let’s just do that with him.’ He played this spacey thing and everybody just kind of played along, but we kind of knew we were going to go back in time and rock out in the end,” says Stern, who pulled out his synth-like Boss MO-2 for the guitar solo. “It just happened. I hadn’t used it for the whole record, so I said, ‘Let me use this with distortion.’”
Stern and his wife, musician Leni Stern, have always practiced as a duo at home, but they only started performing together recently. In this live shot, Leni presides in the background.
Photo by Chris Marroquin
The 55 Bar
Since roughly 1984, NYC’s 55 Bar was Stern’s home away from home. He had a weekly residency there for decades, playing every Monday and Wednesday when he was back in town. In stark contrast to a formal concert at a big-money venue, gigs at the 55 Bar—lovingly nicknamed “The Dump”—were casual, low-key situations. For guitar geeks, it was the best deal around, especially in the early days when the $12 cover charge also included two drinks and popcorn.
At his 55 Bar gigs, Stern would tweak new compositions and arrangements, and stretch out on jazz standards. It wouldn’t be uncommon at the 55 Bar to hear Stern burn for 20 minutes on a very uptempo blues, exploring esoteric ideas that you might not hear him do on a more listener-friendly studio album. Or, he could morph a jazz standard into an endlessly building, extended-outro vamp where he would play ear-twisting lines.
“Playing [at 55 Bar], sometimes I would come back that night and be inspired to try to write something.”
Musicians as diverse as Hiromi Uehara, Paul Shaffer, and the late Roy Hargrove would often randomly show up and sit in with Stern. Countless magic moments happened at the 55 Bar, very often sparking new ideas for Stern. “Playing there, sometimes I would come back that night and be inspired to try to write something,” says Stern, who made his first public appearance after the accident at 55 Bar on October 10, 2016, and used subsequent gigs there as a rehab of sorts as he began relearning the instrument.
At the club, Stern created a culture that defined a New York movement in jazz guitar, and gave players like Wayne Krantz and Adam Rogers, among others, an opportunity to showcase their abilities and develop their craft.
Sadly, however, in 2022, the 55 Bar closed, striking a devastating blow to the Big Apple’s creative community. “That place was one in a million,” says Stern.
“It’s a total drag,” he continues. “You have to look around and hustle gigs. It’s a challenge for younger players to find clubs to play and keep going. Even as discouraging as it is, I tell people, whatever you do, just try to find time to practice. Find a couple of hours every day. It’s a corny phrase but just ‘water the flowers.’ Otherwise, you got nothing.”
YouTube It
After decades of gigging separately, Mike Stern and his wife Leni Stern decided to start performing together. Leni’s ngoni playing can be heard on Echoes and Other Songs, and in this clip, the duo jam at home on one of Leni’s West African-inspired songs.
![Rig Rundown: Steve Vai [2023]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/rig-rundown-steve-vai-2023.jpg?id=38640211&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
Steve Vai is much more than a great guitarist. The American guitarist has established himself as a key figure in guitar culture, and one of the world’s leading masters of shred. Vai broke on the scene in 1980 as Frank Zappa’s transcriptionist, until Zappa hired Vai, age 20, to join his touring band—Zappa allegedly called Vai his “little Italian virtuoso.”
Bolstering his guitar theatrics with sharp songwriting and producing, Vai went on to conquer the world of guitar music, winning three Grammys and selling 15 million records. PG was lucky to be invited to Vai’s recent show at the Country Music Hall of Fame’s CMA Theatre in Nashville, where his tech, Doug MacArthur, took John Bohlinger through Vai’s jaw-dropping current touring rig.
Special thanks to Doug MacArthur for explaining this incredibly complex rig.
Brought to you by D’Addario XS Strings.
Evo
Currently on its fifth neck, Vai’s trusty axe has been a constant for touring and recording since roughly 1992. It sports DiMarzio “Evolution Bridge” pickups in both the neck and bridge position, “EVO gold” Jumbo frets, and a cosmo black Ibanez LO-PRO tremolo. Vai keeps this one in standard tuning, courtesy of .009-.042 Ernie Ball Super Slinkies.
Flo III
Flo III has been Vai’s main guitar since the late 2000s. This Jem was assembled at the Ibanez Los Angeles Custom Shop, where it was fitted with a Fernandes Sustainer, and modified with a lightly scalloped fretboard. It’s outfitted with EVO gold jumbo frets, a DiMarzio Evolution Bridge pickup, and an Ibanez LO-PRO tremolo. This one also lives in standard tuning, with .009-.042 Ernie Ball Super Slinkies.
Bo
A truly unique aesthetic. Circa 2001, BO was the prototype for the “Jem 77BRMR” model. You’ll notice the mirror crazing under the finish, on the forearm contour. This was worked out for production models, but Vai fell in love with the sound of this particular prototype, and has kept it in the touring lineup since the early 2000s. The neck boasts blue LED front and side dot markers, which were done by Martin Sims. It’s equipped with Jumbo Jescar nickel silver frets, a Fernandes Sustainer, a DiMarzio Evolution bridge pickup, and a LO-PRO Ibanez tremolo. This one rides in drop C tuning, with a set of .010-.052 Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottoms.
Little Pretty
This one is a production model Ibanez John Schofield JSM, outfitted in a loud Bonvillain Dip, with gold leaf binding and unique pin-striping on the back. The electronics are stock, although the tone controls have been disconnected. Little Pretty sports locking Grover tuners, and a Tusq nut. Doug MacArthur has also re-radiused the fretboard to 16” throughout, and re-fretted it with Jumbo EVO gold fretwire, giving this guitar a very familiar feel to Vai. Plus, it’s gussied up with a very well-loved fluffy white strap!
Zeus
Zeus is a 1998 one-off prototype for the Hoshino 90th anniversary Jem model. Only one 7-string with this aesthetic was made, and it has remained stored away in Steve’s collection until recently, when pulled into touring duty in early 2023. It’s got custom chrome-topped DiMarzio Blaze pickups, and abalone dot inlays, mods made by MacArthur to get it ready for its first tour. It has jumbo nickel-silver frets, and hangs in standard tuning with a low A, thanks to .009-.056 Ernie Balls.
Candle
Made in the early 2000s by the Ibanez Custom Shop, this unique Jem/Strat hybrid boasts a classic sound while still maintaining the Vai aesthetic. It’s loaded with Fender Fat 50s single coils, a Wilkinson tremolo, and EVO gold jumbo frets over 21 frets with a custom 12” radius.
The Beast With Three Necks
This Frankenstein monster, known as the Hydra, has one body, two headstocks, and three necks, accommodating both seven- and 12-string guitars as well as a four-string bass and half-fretless neck. Pickup combinations include a sustainer, humbuckers, single-coils, and a piezo. Oh, and did we mention there’s also a harp onboard?
The Beast With Three Necks
The Hydra has two outputs. One is an ethernet cable, and the other is midi.
The ethernet plugs into a custom Hydra Brain built by Ibanez, which is mounted in the middle of the rack. The ethernet input distributes the signal for each individual instrument on the hydra, and the brain gives each instrument its own 1/4” output, as well as a master level control for each instrument. The harp, bass, and 12-string 1/4” brain outputs go into individual inputs of the AXE FX III TURBO, for the Hydra Song Patch. These three instruments utilize effects and amp modeling in the Fractal, and come out stereo to the front-of-house mixing console. The 7-string, however, doesn’t utilize modeling at all. Its output from the brain goes into the Little Lehle III A/B pedal on Vai’s pedalboard, which gets routed into his pedalboard and normal amplifier signal path. In other words, the 7-string runs through Steve’s rig just like his normal guitars.
There are 3 small MIDI trigger buttons hidden in various locations on the Hydra’s body, which trigger sound effects featured in the song. The MIDI cable goes into a small custom-built splitter box, which feeds each trigger button into a Roland TD-27 drum module, hard-mounted in the middle of the rack and routed to front-of-house.
Rack 'Em Up
Vai runs a neon green, 60-foot-long custom DiMarzio instrument cable from his guitar to his board. The first pedal in the chain is a Little Lehle III A/B switch, that allows Vai’s team to switch between the Hydra and his regular guitars.
From there, the signal hits Vai’s Dunlop 95Q automatic wah, modded by MacArthur to remove the gain switch and add a volume and Q control on the left side of the wah. Vai runs the volume pot all the way up, and the Q around 95 percent of the way up.
From there the signal hits an Ibanez Jemini Distortion then a Digitech Whammy DT. Vai always has the right side of the pedal set to jump 7 semitones up from the moment the switch is stepped on. He uses this constantly, and its work can be heard on songs like “Weeping China Doll,” “Lights Are On,” and “Greenish Blues.”
Then the guitar goes into the input of the rack unit. There’s a Morningstar Effects ML5 MIDI looper, which has an Ibanez Jemini (seen on top of the rack) in a loop, that only comes on during various points during the Hydra performance, via MIDI.
After the ML5, the signal flows into two Synergy SYN-2 preamps, which are daisy-chained together to allow Vai full use of all four modules that are loaded into them: two Synergy VAI modules, and two Synergy B-MAN modules. The 2 Vai modules are set fairly similar—the first is his main tone, and the second one is set virtually identical, but with the gain backed down a bit. The B-MAN modules are used mainly for their beautiful clean channels, but also for their great ’70s overdriven channels, which Vai occasionally uses throughout the night. The module channels are controlled via the Mastermind LT MIDI footswitch on Vai’s pedalboard.
Shred Synergy
From the Synergys, the signal exits into the input of a Fractal Axe FX III Turbo. This unit is controlled simultaneously by the FC-12 switcher on Steve’s pedalboard, and a second FC-12, at MacArthur’s guitar boat. Each song in the set has its own patch in the Fractal, mainly utilizing different digital delays, chorusing, and reverbs for each song. Vai runs his rig in stereo, so the signal exits the Fractal’s outputs via left and right.
From the stereo output of the fractal, the left and right outputs now go into the left and right inputs of the Fryette LX-2 Stereo Tube Power amp. This power amp is 50 watts per-side, and both left and right are controlled via one single volume control, which allows Vai’s team to maintain even levels between the left and right guitar cabinets. Vai usually rides the volume around 1 or 2 o’clock (depending on the venue), with the depth control pushed in. A second LX2 powers Vai’s front-stage 1x12 stereo guitar monitors, which were custom-built by CARVIN.)
The main Fryette sends its output to the Carvin Legacy 4x12 cabinets on stage left and stage right. These cabs are each loaded with a quartet of Celestion Vintage 30s, and feature unique “Inviolate” artwork grill cloth, which MacArthur had custom-made by NoiseyHammer. These cabs have been with Vai for a long time, and can be seen in the Where The Wild Things Are DVD, when they were fitted with custom grill cloths from the Sound Theories album artwork.
Shop Steve Vai's Rig
Steve Vai Ibanez UV70P
Ibanez JSM100
DiMarzio Evolution Pickups
Ibanez Prestige AZ2203N
Synergy Vai Signature Preamps
Synergy BMan Preamps
DigiTech Whammy DT
Dunlop 535Q Cry Baby Wah
When Louis Cato received this Univox LP-style as a gift in high school, it needed some major TLC. A few years later, it got some practical upgrades and now makes regular appearances with Cato on The Late Show.
By this time, us audience members have been sitting in Manhattan’s chilly Ed Sullivan Theater for about 90 minutes. We’ve gotten our seats, had a bathroom break after getting settled, and had some fun with warm-up comic Paul Mecurio. The first musician summoned by announcer Jen Spyra is drummer Joe Saylor. Wearing his trademark cowboy hat, he jogs out, gets behind the kit, and kicks off an up-tempo second-line groove. Next comes upright bassist Endea Owens and percussionist Nêgah Santos. The band’s trumpeter, Jon Lampley, is introduced, and he’s brought along his bandmates in the Huntertones as guests, so saxophonist Dan White and trombonist Chris Ott come out as well.
Louis Cato feat. Stay Human "Look Within"
The multitalented Louis Cato leads the Stay Human band through a special rooftop performance of his song “Look Within,” from his album, Starting Now.
The audience is now on its feet, the band’s pocket is thick, and the energy is building. When bandleader Louis Cato charges onstage, he reaches his mic on the bandstand and shouts, “I feel good today!” with explosive enthusiasm and a big grin, and the band launches into Jon Batiste’s “I’m from Kenner.” Cato sings the catchy and gleeful refrain: “I feel good, I feel free, I feel fine just being me / I feel good today.” And the audience is feeling the love. Almost everyone is bouncing and clapping along.
A couple minutes in, when it seems like the song has reached its super-positive-vibe, high-energy climax, Cato shouts into his mic, “How do you feel today, Stephen?” And with that, Colbert comes running out from the middle of the set. Cato leaps from the bandstand toward the host as the crowd explodes. The two grab hold of each other and attempt to spin around, but the bandleader, holding his black-sparkle Tuttle T-style, loses his grip and goes sliding across the shiny stage. There’s a second where both are comically stunned—Kevin McCallister Home Alone-expressions on both of their faces—but Cato quickly jumps to his feet, both he and his guitar unharmed, and runs back to the bandstand, where he keeps the song moving along with his bandmates, who haven’t missed a beat.
All this excitement isn’t even for the TV audience! Colbert is coming out for the un-televised pre-show Q&A. In a few minutes, they’ll do a new taped intro that looks more like what we see every night. But they’ve gotten the crowd energized, and we need to keep it up. They need our energy to do their jobs.
The Late Show Band welcomes a lot of guests up on the bandstand. Here, Cato and Joe Walsh boogie down.
Photo by Scott Kowalchyk
As Cato sees it, that’s what his role as bandleader is all about: keeping the audience engaged and amplifying the drama and action of the show. “That translates to the energy that the viewers get at home,” he explains. “For all of us here, we’re able to feed off that energy and do the best possible show that we all can.”
Colbert agrees with that job description and adds that the bandleader himself has the same contagious effect on his players. “Louis is an extraordinarily gifted multi-instrumentalist,” he says, “whose spirit of creativity and collaboration not only elevates everything the band does musically but inspires me to be better at my job.” He adds, “I’m so happy to call him my friend.”
Beyond his infectious energy and charisma, there are a lot of ways Cato keeps the Late Show Band invigorated from night to night. For one, he keeps the music fresh by tackling a new cover song every day. That doesn’t mean running down rote note-for-note charts. Cato and the band take a reconstructionist approach that fans of his work—whether from his collaborations with artists such as the Huntertones, Scary Pockets, or Vulfpeck, or from his regular Instagram cover-song posts—will recognize.
“Louis is an extraordinarily gifted multi-instrumentalist whose spirit of creativity and collaboration not only elevates everything the band does musically but inspires me to be better at my job.”—Stephen Colbert
On this evening, the band runs through a host of multi-genre reinterpretations during the two-episode taping, including a slow-burning and soulful “Smokestack Lightning,” a New Orleans-style “Down by the Riverside,” and a fingerpicked, acoustic-led take of Joni Mitchell’s “Free Man in Paris” that gets Colbert lip syncing along off camera. On a horn-driven arrangement of Stevie Wonder’s “Love’s in Need of Love Today,” there’s a re-worked bridge that creates a generous feature spot for the guest horn players.
Every arrangement brings a new and unique perspective to a classic track, to ensure the band is “not just a wedding band doing a cover of a song on the radio.” Cato adds, “We’re arranging it and making it our own—because that’s the sonic fingerprint of our show.”
St. Vincent jams with Louis and crew.
Photo by Scott Kowalchyk
A Lifelong Path
Listening to the story of Cato’s musical life, it seems that this job—with its demand for a blend of careful strategizing and on-the-fly creative thinking, as well as effortless instrumental skills and charismatic showmanship—is what he’s been training for since the beginning.
On the morning of the taping I attended, I meet Cato in his dressing room. Painted with sky-blue walls and a cloud mural on the ceiling, it’s a comfortable place to hang. The bandleader is wearing slim-fit floral pants, a hoodie over a black T-shirt, and a long necklace. He sits across from me on his couch, next to a guitar stand that holds a few instruments—including his Tuttle, a Jesse Stern-built baritone acoustic, and his Univox LP-style—and a ’65 Deluxe Reverb reissue with a Universal Audio Dream ’65 pedal plugged into it.
“There’s not a time in my brain when I was not making music in some way or form,” Cato says. His mother, a pianist in the Church of God in Christ, bought her son a Diamond drum kit that he recalls having paper heads when he was just 2 years old, and she started teaching the toddler to accompany her. “I marvel at my mom,” he laughs. “Like, who buys their 2-year-old a drum kit?” After playing those drums every day for a year, he started accompanying her at services.
The family moved around a lot. Cato’s father was in the Air Force, and Louis was born on a base in Lisbon, Portugal, before moving to Dayton, Ohio. Not long after he started playing in church there, they moved again to Washington, D.C., and when Louis was 5 they settled in Albemarle, North Carolina. A few years later, Louis started playing guitar on a “little burgundy sunburst acoustic. Eventually, I busted a string and busted another string and just kept playing with four strings. I delved more into bass from playing bass lines on the acoustic guitar. So, for my 9th birthday, my dad bought me a 4-string bass.”
“I’d show up to Tip’s and we’d do a week of writing sessions with John Legend or have André 3000 in the studio for a couple of weeks.”
While it was strictly pragmatic reasons that initially drew him to the bass, he says his biggest inspiration was the bass player he knew best: his mother’s left hand. Her playing, rooted in the COGIC (Church of God in Christ) style, “involves heavy left-hand bass. I wasn’t as psyched to play bass in church since the way my mom plays is very defined. But eventually I kind of had to learn how she plays. It was always just her and me playing. And I had to learn to move with that and follow that. She’s a great bass player.”
Along the way, Cato picked up more instruments. By the time he headed to Berklee, he was playing drums, guitar, and bass as well as tuba, trombone, and euphonium. “I was going from being a big fish in a small pond to a small fish in a large pond of super-talented people who had heard oodles of music I had never dreamed of,” he recalls. So, he decided to focus his studies on the instrument he’d played the longest.
Louis Cato's Gear
A glimpse at Cato’s pedals and amp, which mostly live outside of the camera’s eye, behind his stage monitor.
Guitars
- Univox LP-style
- Tuttle Custom Hollow T
- 1961 Gibson SG reissue
- Martin OM-28
Amps
- ’65 Fender Princeton Reverb reissue
Effects
- Boss FV-500H Volume Pedal
- Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner
- Dunlop Cry Baby
- 3 Leaf Audio Octabvre
- J. Rockett Archer
- Truetone Jekyll & Hyde
- Xotic RC Booster
- MXR Carbon Copy
Strings and Picks
- D’Addario EJ16 (.012-.053)
- D’Addario EXL110 (.010-.046)
- Dunlop Max Grip .88 mm
Cato completed just two semesters—fall ’03 and spring ’04—before deciding to concentrate on playing the gigs that were paying his bills. “My rationale was, much to my parents’ chagrin, here’s an opportunity where I can keep learning on the job and be working my way out of the debt I went into in this year.”
Gigging with wedding and church bands gave the multi-instrumentalist an opportunity to keep all his instrumental and vocal skills alive. “My oldest daughter was born soon after that,” he recalls, “so I felt really, really aware of how lucky I was, how lucky any of us are, to make a living and support a family as a musician.” Cato spent five years in Boston, playing various instruments in gigging bands, and he frequented local institution Wally’s Cafe Jazz Club, just two blocks down the street from Berklee, “for self-education and inspiration. When that felt like I hit a ceiling, I looked at where I could go to continue my inspiration and working on the kind of projects I wanted to be working on, and that led me here.”
By that time, Cato’s friend Meghan Stabile, had moved to New York and created the promotion and production company Revive Music, which was dedicated to the kinds of jazz and hip-hop collaborations he wanted to pursue. Cato moved to Bushwick, Brooklyn, with his band Six Figures— “There were six of us; we did not make six figures!”—and would head back to Boston each weekend for the gigs that were paying his bills. Eager to soak up the New York scene, he’d return to New York on Sunday nights and go directly to jam sessions.
All that time back and forth on the Northeast Corridor paid off. A self-described musical “utility knife,” Cato’s multi-instrumentalism, as well as his talents as a songwriter, arranger, producer, and engineer, made him a major asset as a collaborator, and the New York scene took notice. Soon, he established essential connections that would affect his career, forming “an instantaneous brotherhood that continues to this day” with producer Kamaal Fareed, aka Q-Tip. “Through that, I ended up really delving into a lot of relationships and credits.”
The two artists worked on high-level collaborations that not only bolstered Cato’s reputation but served as a major piece of his education. “I’d show up to Tip’s,” he explains, “and we’d do a week of writing sessions with John Legend or have André 3000 in the studio for a couple of weeks. Sometimes things would come from it, and sometimes nothing would come from it. But being in the creative process on that level in a trusted space was invaluable for me. I learned so much.”
Outside of Q-Tip’s studio, Cato was learning from plenty of masters, mostly from behind the kit. “It’s really special when you find yourself learning things you connect to,” he says about his work alongside artists such as bassist Marcus Miller, keyboardist George Duke, and guitarist John Scofield. “And I learned so much about myself from connecting to some of these people.”
Staying Human
Back in 2015, Cato received a phone call from pianist Jon Batiste. The two had never met, but Batiste rang him up about a mysterious project—a theme song for a TV show that he couldn’t disclose. “I had a wisdom tooth appointment back in Boston, and I got a random call,” Cato remembers. “I think his exact words were, ‘I’d love to have your ears on it.’ And I followed my gut, rescheduled my trip, stayed in New York an extra day with an abscessed wisdom tooth.”
The two got together to co-write and produce “Humanism,” which would become the theme song for the Stephen Colbert-hosted Late Show. Batiste played piano, Cato played the guitar, bass, and drum parts and “put on my editing hat.” They brought in Joe Saylor—who would become the show’s drummer—to play tambourine, as well as saxophonist Eddie Barbash. “After the session,” Cato remembers, “I went back, got my wisdom tooth out, and went back on the road with John Scofield.”
Three of the four go-to guitars Cato uses on The Late Show: a black Tuttle T-style, a cherry-red Gibson SG, and a Martin OM-28.
At first, Cato played the multi-instrumental role of his dreams, attempting to surround himself with every instrument he could play. “That lasted about three days before reality set in,” he laughs. “Slowly, one by one, things started disappearing—a floor tom going away here, a Pro Tools setup going offstage there. Eventually, as the band formed out, I moved around to what was needed. I was the utility guy—played a lot of kazoo, a lot of cowbell.”
While on the road drumming with Sco’, Cato got the invite from Batiste to join the show’s band, Stay Human. “It was a huge life shift for me,” Cato explains. “I was making really good money on the road with really good musicians, which was really fulfilling. And I took a chance. I loved the idea of being a part of something creatively from its inception.”
Eventually, Cato settled into a more consistent electric bass role, until Batiste brought in upright player Endea Owens, and he moved to guitar, where he’s mostly stayed. When Batiste left the show last year, Cato took over as bandleader—officially starting this season, back in September—and decided he’d lead from his role as guitarist. “Of all the places I occupied,” he says, “guitar was the easiest and most natural to me to lead the band, in the energy. From behind the drums, it’s a different thing, and we’ve done it when Joe was out. But it just was a really natural progression.”
Same Show, New Job
In just a few months, Cato’s new role as bandleader has had an impact on the show. The renamed Late Show Band’s engine seems to be burning on a new kind of fuel. And it feels as though that energy is coming directly from Cato.
When we talk, the guitarist is deeply engaged, in a kind of hyper-focused way that is not intense but more casually un-distractable. He brings that same focus to the show. While Colbert delivers monologues, Cato is zoomed in on the host, listening to every word, often riffing around on his guitar to contribute musical commentary. During interviews, he’s taking cues and following the tone of the conversation, looking for ways to adapt.
The bandleader gig requires loads of big-picture improvisation, but also lots of prep. Cato explains that each week he makes a set list, but the band will react and make changes in the moment. “My job ends up being a lot of judgement calls that affect the flow of the show,” he says. “We have a group of compositions we wrote for the show that can complement different moments. If there’s a major energy shift in an interview that takes a turn or something happens in the day, like a tragedy, we’ll call one of the songs we wrote for the show for a moment such as that. Recently, we had a guest on that started improvising a song. So, I have on our in-ear mic and call out the key and start playing, and we all jump in, and now we’re doing this instead.”
Cato poses with his black-sparkle chambered T-style, made by Tuttle. “When I’m checking off core priorities in sound,” he says, “if I’m going for rhythmic things, I go to the Tele.”
Photo by Scott Kowalchyk
Watching the Late Show Band in person, I see this play out as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen explains the steps the U.S. can take to avoid a recession. It’s a heavy and heady conversation, and, frankly, it’s anything but fun. Cato knows he’ll need to pick the audience back up. As he watches from the bandstand, he gives tempo cues to the band, who nod along, so they can effectively shift the energy and get the audience re-focused for the next guest, actor/director Sarah Polley.
As a guitar player, Cato says he sticks to playing things that feel most natural to him so he can concentrate on his bandleading duties. He adds that he considers himself more a rhythm guitarist than a lead guitarist. (It’s worth noting that his delineation is more conceptual than musical: Cato is an inspired and dynamic melodic lead player, but his deeply rooted phrasing and feel is at the forefront of everything he plays, so the rhythm-first thing applies to it all.) “This is not a space as a guitar player where I’m jumping out of the box trying any and everything and exploring,” he explains. “You get to some of those places. But for me, it always has to start from something I can do while leading the band and reading the energy and making judgement calls.”
“We’re arranging it and making it our own—because that’s the sonic fingerprint of our show.”
That rooted, pragmatic ethos applies to the gear he chooses as well. “I never was a big gear person,” he admits. Luckily, he has Late Show Band tech and informed gearhead Matt Mead to help him keep his pedalboard well-stocked. “There’s so many things I’m learning about the job and trying to keep straight in my head that this ends up getting the short end of the stick, and it wouldn’t work if there was not a Matt Mead to make up the rest of that stick and make it sound good.”
“The show throws a lot of curveballs,” Mead points out. “He steers the boat as far as the tones he’s looking for and if there’s a particular sound he’s looking for. Sometimes, I’ll recommend stuff and say, ‘Hey I notice you’re doing this, maybe we should try this.’”
Cato’s collaboratively curated pedalboard is pretty simple at its core: It starts with a Boss FV-500H volume pedal, a Boss TU-3, a Dunlop Cry Baby, and 3 Leaf Audio Octabvre. Cato shows me how he uses the latter for more traditional, Hendrix-style playing, but he points out that the band plays a lot of montunoes, and he tends to use the octave pedal for those. For drive, he uses a J. Rockett Archer and a Truetone Jekyll & Hyde, which are followed by an Xotic RC Booster and an MXR Carbon Copy, all into a Fender ’65 Princeton Reverb reissue, and powered by a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power Plus.
In live performances outside of The Late Show, Cato uses various guitars, but says that the studio’s cold temperature doesn’t do many favors for instruments such as his Gibson Luther Dickinson ES-335 or some of his acoustics, so he’s careful when selecting which guitars come on stage at the Ed Sullivan Theater. The three guitars that most commonly appear on the show are his black Tuttle Custom Hollow T, a cherry red Gibson SG 1961 Reissue, and a Martin OM-28.
Another guitar that sometimes appears on the Late Show is his LP-style Univox, which I ask Cato about in his dressing room. “If I need to be altogether comfortable,” he explains, “I pull out the Univox, because it’s my earliest guitar. I’ve had this since high school.”
Cory Wong "Lunchtime" - The Late Show's Commercial Breakdown
When musical guests visit The Late Show, they get the full-band treatment from Cato and company. Here, Cory Wong sits in for a rhythm guitar showdown of the highest level.
Back when he first got the guitar, Cato remembers, it was in rough shape, desperately in need of wiring and pickup repairs and a new set of tuners. It stayed that way until he was in Boston. When he picked up a wedding band gig playing trombone and guitar, he was lucky enough to have a roommate who could get the Univox performance-ready by replacing the original tuners with locking units, cleaning out the electronics, and swapping the pickups for a pair of Seymour Duncans.
“I didn’t even know there was a such thing as a professional musician.”
But Cato says that even before those repairs, he’s always “loved it because it’s all I had. I remember I was playing a little Vox amp, and this guitar had a feeling out of that amp. This guitar just became home base and felt super natural to my fingers. If I need to just not be thinking at all, this is home.”
Did he ever dream he’d be on television every night, holding this Univox and chumming with a late-night host? “Never! Not once!” he says. “It was just a product of my nurture growing up in a small town. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a professional musician.” And yet, Cato pursued music as fully and single-mindedly as he could. “I just knew that I liked it and felt connected to it.”
