Steven Bernstein and Orrin Evans

I took the news hard, but some writing on Substack has helped:

• Harmony Holiday’s dense and poetic essay heals as it diagnoses;

• Sam Kriss was appropriately irreverent and honest;

• This essay from Musa al-Gharbi, first published in December 2023, lays it out rather plainly;

• Ross Barkan has a first draft of history;

• Ted Gioia brings it all back home. Please, let us be above all serious, and engage with the world seriously.

We owe it to ourselves, to the future, and to the music to press on. What good we have comes from each other.

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Tonight, Thursday, November 7th, Ember, my cooperative band with Caleb Wheeler Curtis on stritch and trumpet and Noah Garabedian on bass and synth, plays at Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center. It’s our first time appearing at Dizzy’s, a great honor for which we are properly psyched.

Joining us at Dizzy’s are our friends and mentors Orrin Evans and Steven Bernstein, composers, bandleaders, and community leaders both. We’re a lucky band.

The Hard Way (2024); Walk A Mile In My Shoe (2024); August In March (2023)

The long-gone NBC show Night Music, hosted by David Sanborn, remains a touchstone. When Ember was first onstage with Steven and Orrin last summer at NuBlu, it happily reminded me of something the late Hal Willner might have assembled to close out an episode of Night Music. We knew that Orrin and Steven understood us, and it was beautiful to hear how well they understood each other. They lifted us up.

Trumpeter Steven Bernstein, born in 1961 in the Bay Area, has been a mover and shaker on the NYC scene since the Eighties, leading a host of different groups: the long-standing Sex Mob (a quartet of himself, saxophonist Briggan Krauss, bassist Tony Scherr, and drummer Kenny Wollesen); Spanish Fly, a trio with tubist Marcus Rojas and guitarist Dave Tronzo; the Millennial Territory Orchestra, a Swing Era-style big band playing contemporary music; and Hot 9, a project with New Orleans pianist Henry Butler. Bernstein is one the music’s ecumenical figures, a truly inclusive spirit— see his four volumes of Community Music by the Millennial Territory Orchestra.

Pianist Orrin Evans has been leading bands, collaborating with masters, organizing tours, and making records, all in pursuit of truth and beauty, since the mid-Nineties. Born in 1975 and raised in Philadelphia, he’s a pillar of the community and a goodwill ambassador.

We’ve been working with Orrin since the 2020 lockdown, when we recorded Ember with Orrin Evans (Sunnyside, 2021), and I remember first hearing him on a Bobby Watson gig in 2002. I loved Orrin’s playing back then just as much as I did two weeks ago at the Vanguard, where Orrin was appearing with Ravi Coltrane’s quintet (which also featured Jonathan Finlayson, Robert Hurst, and Mark Whitfield Jr.).

This is a busy season for Orrin. He’s on the cover of DownBeat this month (here’s a link to buy the magazine, as the article doesn’t appear to be online), and Tarbaby, the collective of Evans, bassist Eric Revis, and drummer Nasheet Waits, just released a superb new album, You Think This America. Right on the heels of Tarbaby’s release, Orrin dropped his great new Captain Black Big Band album, Walk A Mile In My Shoe (Imani, 2024).

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The dread of the moment weighs heavily, but music lightens the load. That’s a fact. Let’s listen to Steven Bernstein and Orrin Evans.

Here are five favorite Sex Mob tracks; all but the Columbia album are available on Steven’s Bandcamp page, which is the best place to get them.

• “Holiday Of Briggan” (Bernstein) from Din of Inequity (Columbia/Knitting Factory, 1998). Track 1 from the first Sex Mob record lays it all out— beats, blues, riffs, screams, and fun.

• “Sign O’ The Times” (Prince) from Din of Inequity. Take a great tune from a beloved artist and give it the Sex Mob treatment— this is what Steven is all about, with Wollesen’s beat, sound, and feel tying it all together.

• “Billy Preston” (Bernstein) from Solid Sender (Knitting Factory, 2000). Raunchy and joyous, with an especially ear-catching 3/4 groove from Wollesen and Tony Scherr. Briggan Krauss’s tone lifts the band up, and while Bernstein is simply celebrating.

• “Opening: Dr. Yes” (Bernstein) from Sex Mob Does Bond (Ryko/Ropeadope, 2001). Steven plays the melody so much like a singer that I hear words, and Kenny plays the truth.

• “Fletcher Henderson” (Bernstein) from The Hard Way (Corbett vs. Demsey, 2023). Electronica and the architect of the Swing Era: ancient to modern, with a sense of humor and the blues. That’s Bernstein, that’s Sex Mob.

And here are five of my go-to Orrin Evans tracks:

• “Bernie’s Tune” (Bernie Miller) from Grown Folks Bizness (Criss Cross, 1999). With bassist Rodney Whitaker and Ralph Peterson on drums. I’ve never heard this tune played this way before. Incredible Peterson— authoritative yet transparent.

• “Big Jimmy” (Orrin Evans) from Ralph Peterson: The Art of War (Criss Cross 2001). The fearlessness and openness Evans brings to the high-intensity, edge-of-your-seat Ralph Peterson band (with Jeremy Pelt, Jimmy Greene, and Eric Revis) requires love for the band and confidence in your direction.

• “Bright Size Life” (Pat Metheny) from Blessed Ones (Criss Cross, 2001). With Eric Revis and Nasheet Waits, this expansive view of Metheny’s classic melody should be better known.

• “You Don’t Need A License To Drive” (Orrin Evans) from #knowingishalfthebattle (Smoke Sessions, 2016). With guitarist Kevin Eubanks in the foreground, drummer Mark Whitfield Jr, lights it up, before settling in. Love those repeated notes from Orrin.

• “Blues In The Night” from Walk A Mile In My Shoe (Imani Records, 2024), with vocalist Lisa Fischer, well-known for her work with the Rolling Stones. Harold Arlen’s tune, with Fischer’s classic interpretation, suggests contemporary R&B and something else— Dinah Washington, classic blues singers, Charles Mingus. Bernstein would kill in this band. American music makes room for us all.

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Music brings us together, no matter what. We’re going to need all the togetherness we can get in the immediate future. This Substack is for you, and I’m with you.

P.S. My whopper error in my Chick Corea essay (listing Joe Henderson on Tones For Joan’s Bones instead of Joe Farrell) has been fixed— read the article on the app to get the correct version. Sincere apologies, and thanks for letting me know right away. I take this writing very seriously.