The title of this Mike Stern release seems odd considering that the music herein could have been made any time in the last two decades. The opening "Chatter" delineates the distinctive, angular, funk-bop style that the guitarist pioneered with the Brecker Brothers in the early Eighties. Other tunes alternate between the kind of "world-music" jazz on which his contemporary Pat Metheny has built a career (albeit Stern's is a higher testosterone version), and your basic blues-inflected fusion. His 1999 outing, Play, featured Bill Frisell and John Scofield, and pushed him in some new directions. The follow-up, Voices, began his "world-music" explorations, and though it has been done before, and here again, he does it well. An engaging composer, Stern skillfully integrates vocals by Richard Bona and Elizabeth Kontomanou on tunes like "Silver Lining" and "Mirage." Sidemen Will Lee, Vinnie Colaiuta, and Dennis Chambers all turn in top shelf performances. This type of jazz is certainly popular, but Stern's signature funk skills are what set him apart from contemporaries like Metheny, John Abercrombie, and Bill Frisell. Incorporating some modern hip-hop elements might have stayed truer to that style while more interestingly referencing the tone of these times. --Michael Ross