Steven Bernstein

Based in New York, Steven Bernstein functions as trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He established and leads the Grammy-nominated ensemble Sex Mob as well as the avant-fusion trio Spanish Fly, displaying broad versatility through hundreds of sideman appearances. Bernstein served as music director for the Lounge Lizards, arranged and directed the Kansas City Band drawn from the Robert Altman film and Verve All-Stars Tour, and conducted the Academy Award-nominated score for Get Shorty. He acted as musical director on multiple high-profile Hal Willner productions centered on the music of Leonard Cohen, Doc Pomus, and Bill Withers. From 1999 to 2008 he released four thematically connected, widely praised albums on John Zorn’s Tzadik label, among them Diaspora Soul and Diaspora Hollywood. In 2004 he joined Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble house band and founded the Millennial Territory Orchestra, whose first recording, MTO, Vol. 1, appeared in 2006, followed by We Are MTO in 2008. MTO Plays Sly came out on Royal Potato Family in 2011. Bernstein and the late New Orleans pianist Henry Butler created the nearly uncategorizable all-star unit the Hot 9 and documented Viper’s Drag for Impulse! in 2014. In 2021 MTO released Tinctures in Time (Community Music, Vol. 1) on Community Music.

Born in Berkeley, California in 1961, Bernstein began trumpet studies while in elementary school. His band director Phil Hardymon profoundly shaped him by emphasizing discipline within student ensembles. During sixth grade he formed a lifelong friendship and artistic partnership with composer and multi-instrumentalist Peter Apfelbaum of the Hieroglyphics Ensemble; together they attended numerous jazz performances throughout the Bay Area, hearing Eddie Harris, Sam Rivers, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Roland Kirk, and Woody Shaw at Keystone Korner, solo recitals by Wadada Leo Smith, Lester Bowie, Oliver Lake, and Baikida Carroll, and a collective concert by the Art Ensemble of Chicago at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall.

After finishing high school in 1978, Bernstein relocated to New York City in 1980. Prior to departing he contributed trumpet to Pillars, the debut album by Peter Apfelbaum with the Berkeley Arts Company & the Hieroglyphics Ensemble. Upon arrival he received guidance from Jimmie Maxwell, lead trumpeter in the Benny Goodman Orchestra in the early 1940s and a prolific sideman. That same year he appeared on the disco group Slick’s Go for It, issued by Fantasy. Bernstein hustled, leading his own ensembles while sitting in wherever possible. In 1981 he recorded with Saheb Sarbib & His Multinational Big Band on Aisha, and in 1985 he participated in Kamikaze Ground Crew’s self-titled debut.

His first significant opportunity arrived in 1989 when he featured on Karen Mantler’s My Cat Arnold and encountered her mother Carla Bley and bassist Steve Swallow. He continued collaborating with Mantler on 1990’s Karen Mantler & Her Cat Arnold Get the Flu and with Kamikaze Ground Crew on The Scenic Route. The next year he appeared on The Very Big Carla Bley Band, Phyllis Hyman’s Prime of My Life, and assumed music-director duties for the Lounge Lizards on Live in Berlin, Vol. 1. By 1992 Bernstein performed and recorded nearly seven days a week, contributing to sessions by Apfelbaum, who had also moved to New York, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Heartbeat, and Medeski Martin & Wood’s Notes from the Underground, among others. In 1993 he worked in both studio and live settings with MMW while also recording with Sakamoto, Aztec Camera, and Justin Warfield.

Late that year Bernstein co-established the Spanish Fly trio alongside guitarist David Tronzo and tuba master Marcus Rojas, quickly captivating listeners at the Knitting Factory and other downtown venues. They documented Rags to Britches for Knitting Factory Works and Insert Tongue Here for Home Recordings in 1994. The following year he participated in Zorn’s large ensemble for John Zorn’s Cobra: Live at the Knitting Factory and guested with Don Byron on the hit Raymond Scott tribute Bug Music. Bernstein served as conductor and orchestrator for the score of director Barry Sonnenfeld’s adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s Get Shorty.

Spanish Fly released Fly by Night in 1996; Bernstein also recorded as sideman with Lori Carson, Satoko Fujii, and Jim Foetus. That year he returned to Hollywood, joining Hal Willner and Butch Morris as associate music producer and arranger on the score and soundtrack for Robert Altman’s Kansas City. Although Bernstein formed Sex Mob in 1995 (performing on slide trumpet), the group did not begin steady live work until 1997, when they issued their debut, Sign of the Times, on Knitting Factory Works. They followed with the Columbia-distributed Din of Inequity in 1998, directed the Lounge Lizards on Queen of All Ears, and appeared on John Lurie’s African Swim and Manny & Lo. That same year Sex Mob released its second album, Solid Sender, and toured regionally.

In 1999 Bernstein issued Diaspora Soul on Zorn’s Tzadik label as part of the Radical Jewish Culture Series, with bandmates including Sex Mob members Briggan Krauss and Tony Scherr plus Roberto Rodriguez, Apfelbaum, and Michael Blake, among others. In 2000 he performed on Lou Reed’s Ecstasy. In 2001 Sex Mob released the Grammy-nominated Sex Mob Does Bond, and in 2002 Bernstein issued the solo Diaspora Blues on Tzadik. The next year Sex Mob delivered Dime Grind Palace, after which Reed invited Bernstein back for his Edgar Allan Poe tribute The Raven. The trumpeter also appeared on Paul Shapiro’s Midnight Minyan for Tzadik. Diaspora Hollywood surfaced in 2004, the same year Bernstein joined Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble band in both house and touring configurations; he additionally recorded on Bill Frisell’s Unspeakable, Antony and the Johnsons’ The Lake, and Medeski Martin & Wood’s End of the World Party.

Bernstein established the Millennial Territory Orchestra in 2004, assembling an impressive roster of musicians from across the country together with numerous guests. Their debut, MTO, Vol. 1, appeared in 2006, the same year Sex Mob released Sexotica and Bernstein arranged the orchestra for Willner’s Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man. He also recorded with Antony and the Johnsons, Joan as Police Woman, Trey Anastasio, Bobby Previte, Shapiro, and Mario Pavone. Bernstein stayed extremely active as studio and touring sideman throughout 2007.

He released We Are MTO in 2008—the orchestra primarily serving as a vehicle for Bernstein’s arrangements of other composers’ works—along with Diaspora Suite, the fourth and final installment of the Tzadik series. In 2009 he collaborated with Marcus Rojas and Kresten Osgood on Tattoos & Mushrooms for ILK Recordings and contributed to at least ten additional albums, including projects by Marianne Faithfull and Helm. In 2010 he played a central role in composer and guitarist Todd Clouser’s A Love Electric and served as featured soloist on Fight Like a Bull’s All Is Gladness in the Kingdom on Clean Feed.

Bernstein maintained an unrelenting schedule in 2011, appearing on David Bromberg’s comeback Use Me, Lee “Scratch” Perry’s Rise Again, and Helm’s live Ramble at the Ryman while still carving out space for his own projects, including a variation on another artist’s material. He again prioritized MTO, issuing the widely praised MTO Plays Sly on Royal Potato Family that September. The nine-piece orchestra, augmented by guest appearances from Antony Hegarty, Bernie Worrell, Dean Bowman, Sandra St. Victor, Bill Laswell, Martha Wainwright, Vernon Reid, and Shilpa Ray, presented a Bernstein-arranged suite drawn from the Sly Stone catalog interspersed with original interludes. Bernstein also worked with Coheed and Cambria in 2011 on The Afterman and The Afterman: Descension.

Following an eight-year hiatus, Sex Mob reunited and delivered Cinema, Circus & Spaghetti: Sex Mob Plays Fellini, a program of Nino Rota themes, in 2013. The year proved exceptionally busy for the trumpeter, who recorded on Marshall Crenshaw’s Stranger and Stranger EP and Roswell Rudd’s Trombone for Lovers, among other sessions.

Bernstein had first met top-shelf New Orleans pianist Henry Butler in 1998 while leading the band in Robert Altman’s Kansas City. The pair reconvened in 2011 to perform early-twentieth-century blues and jazz at a New York City blues festival. In 2012 they played an extended engagement at the Jazz Standard, where producer Joshua Feigenbaum witnessed their performance and persuaded them to document the music. He produced Viper’s Drag, co-billed with the all-star backing unit the Hot 9; the album launched the reactivated Impulse! label in July 2014. It remained their sole recording together, as Butler died in 2018. That same year Bernstein continued studio work with Antony and the Johnsons, Loudon Wainwright III, and the Satoko Fujii Orchestra.

In 2016 Sex Mob issued Cultural Capital, an album consisting entirely of Bernstein originals. He also played a significant part on Nels Cline’s double-length Lovers. The following year Bernstein was enlisted for Valerie June’s The Order of Time, Burnt Sugar the Arkestra Chamber’s All You Zombies Dig the Luminosity, and Mostly Other People Do the Killing’s Loafer’s Hollow. He appeared as co-billed soloist on Nobody Does It Better: The CCDM Jazz Orchestra as James Bond, on Elvis Costello & the Imposters’ Look Now, and on longtime friend and collaborator Joe Fiedler’s Open Sesame.

In 2021 Bernstein performed with Ray Anderson’s Pocket Brass Band on Come In and released Tinctures in Time (Community Music, Vol. 1) with MTO on Ropeadope. The album marked the first occasion Bernstein composed as well as arranged original material for the ensemble.