Few artists exult in the joyous exhilaration and intrepid spirit of communal music-making with the fervor and vitality of visionary bandleader, trumpeter, composer and arranger Steven Bernstein. ResoNation Trio convenes a new chordless trio with master improvisers Scott Colley on bass and Nasheet Waits on drums. The album’s contemplative explorations feel like a departure from the raucous spirit that characterizes so much of the trumpeter’s work, yet the trio discovers such an audacious beauty and celebratory gusto in these sparse environments that the music feels uniquely Bernstein’s. It is also a rarity in his oeuvre for featuring Bernstein — whose mastery of the little-used slide trumpet has become so central to his sonic identity — exclusively playing valve trumpet and flugelhorn. This special engagement at National Sawdust celebrates the release of ResoNation Trio's self-titled album on the Royal Potato Family label, as well as the release of a companion album, Ultra Resonance, in which legendary producer Scotty Hard wholly reimagines the trio’s music.
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With ResoNation Trio, Bernstein remains committed to finding fresh territory to explore in his own singular fashion. The sparse instrumentation of trumpet, bass, and drums yields a journey just as fascinating and unique as any he’s crafted in the past. With the inspiration of that trio format came the insistence on calling Colley and Waits, who Bernstein first heard playing with the legendary pianist Andrew Hill.
The spacious, skeletal pieces that Bernstein penned for ResoNation Trio open new and expansive pathways for the veteran trumpeter. But they also carry him full circle, back to some of his formative influences and his early experiences with the wide-open experimentation on the 1980s Downtown scene. The compositional techniques that Bernstein utilized for the album called upon memories of even earlier influences. He grew up listening to the pioneering likes of Don Cherry, Lester Bowie, Baikida Carroll, Wadada Leo Smith, and Butch Morris, the latter of whom hired him for some of his earliest gigs in New York. The innovative trumpet and compositional voices of these distinctly individualistic artists helped pave the way for his own, and planted the seed for an ebullient and daring musical direction that has finally found a forum for expression.
Bernstein pairs the debut of his acoustic, explorative ResoNation Trio with a startling reinvention by eclectic producer Scotty Hard, with the companion album, Ultra Resonance. In parallel with this captivating trio excursion, Bernstein handed the recordings over to his longtime collaborator, the pioneering Hard, to reimagine the album through his own iconoclastic lens. The result is the uncategorizable Ultra Resonance, which finds Hard breaking down the ResoNation Trio session into its constituent parts and redeploying them as the elements of a wholly original, mutant creation.
// This is a standing room-only performance. If you require accessibility accommodations, please email boxoffice@nationalsawdust.org.
ABOUT STEVEN BERNSTEIN
Steven Bernstein is a trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader whose career bridges jazz, experimental music, film, and dance with a voice that is unmistakably his own. A master of the rare slide trumpet and a veteran of the New York City music scene, Bernstein has spent decades reshaping what contemporary creative music can be — equal parts deep tradition, risk-taking, and joy. His work as an arranger and collaborator spans an extraordinary range: music for films by directors Woody Allen and Robert Altman; compositions choreographed by Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Twyla Tharp; visionary projects with legendary producer Hal Willner; and long-standing collaborations with artists such as Lou Reed, Levon Helm, Roswell Rudd, Henry Butler, Bernie Worrell, and Sam Rivers. Bernstein’s role in Levon Helm’s late- career renaissance contributed to three GRAMMY Awards. Bernstein is best known as the founder and guiding force behind two of the most enduring and imaginative ensembles of the past quarter-century: Sexmob and Millennial Territory Orchestra (MTO).
Now celebrating 30 years together, Sexmob is a quartet that consistently pushes the boundaries of the live music experience. Formed in 1996 out of a weekly residency at New York’s Knitting Factory, the band — Bernstein with Briggan Krauss, Tony Scherr, and Kenny Wollesen — performs without setlists, allowing compositions to evolve organically through improvisation and spontaneous transitions. Rooted in jazz tradition yet irreverent toward genre boundaries, Sexmob has toured extensively for three decades, playing everywhere from opera houses and rock clubs to house concerts and major international festivals. The band earned a DownBeat Critics Poll Award (Beyond Group of the Year, 2002), appears on Bill Frisell’s GRAMMY-winning Unspeakable (produced by Hal Willner), and is currently touring and collaborating with Laurie Anderson, with a new live album from Laurie Anderson and Sexmob — Let X=X — on Nonesuch.
Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra, now marking 25 years, is a nine-piece “little big band” celebrated for its witty, groove-driven reimaginings of music spanning a century — from early jazz and Ellington to Sly Stone, Prince, and beyond. The ensemble’s ambitious four-volume Community Music series (2021-2022) established a bold creative statement for the band, culminating in a major Carnegie Hall program in 2025 celebrating MTO’s 25th anniversary.
“Arranger, composer, brass maniac, and musical alchemist Steven Bernstein is an all-purpose gift to human ears. If you’re a living soul who has ever felt your foot tap or your bottom swing side-to-side because of, say, Ray Charles or Little Feat or Louis Armstrong, then you owe it to yourself to get Bernstein-ized. His musical net is wider than that, but let’s start there.” – Will Layman, PopMatters