Steven Bernstein: Proud Member of the Pre-Computer Absorption Generation

AAJ: Yes, and it's just too late to change the name to "The NYC Eclectic Improvisational Gentlemen.

SB: Exactly [laughing]. Every once in a while, we do something—like, they say, "we want you to do something at the school, but can we call you something else? So I say, "Yeah, we're the Love Gang. We played some high school in Vermont once, in some really progressive town like Burlington or something, and it said, "the Love Gang, also [laughing] known as S*x M*b.

AAJ: The new record is Sexotica. One great thing about Sex Mob is that the same record has never been made twice. Like your previous CD, Dime Grind Palace (Ropeadope/Atlantic, 2003), these are original tunes. But there are two aspects kind of interacting on this one. First, the record is a sort of tribute to Martin Denny, the 1950s musician who made best-selling, faux-tropical instrumental albums like Exotica. Second, the record is marked by its after-the-fact manipulation of sound from the Good and Evil production team—the tracks are chopped up, filtered, altered, distorted and sped up. First of all, why Martin Denny? Second, why the post-production work from Good and Evil?

SB: Well, Good and Evil are friends of our who run a studio. We made a couple of our early records there, and before the very first Sex Mob record came out, there was a single—"Sign o' the Times, the Prince song, with a remix by Good and Evil. It was one of their first jobs, like ten years ago. So we've all known each other for a long time. One of the guys is this guitarist; we played in the Lounge Lizards together before he went more into producing. So I'd gone by their place to pick up some tapes and hang out—they'd said, "Look, we're getting rid of all our tapes, so anyone who has tapes here should come get them. So I came by, and they said, "Hey man, we want you to hear what we're doing. We've been making these records for Thirsty Ear, and we think it would be really cool to do one with Sex Mob. So they played me their records and it sounded really cool. They played me some of their more commercial dance music—they're really into all this bhangra stuff. They thought it would be really cool to do this kind of bhangra/Sex Mob record. They said, "On the way home, stop by this little Indian cabbie stand—you can get all these bhangra records for three bucks each. So I bought some, listened to them on the way home, and said, "Cool. Let's do it.

So we set up a meeting with Peter Gordon, the guy at Thirsty Ear. And I don't think this guy has ever heard Sex Mob. He knows who we are, but I know he's never seen us live. But he knew we were a band that had toured, and won awards, and made records, and blah-blah-blah, and he's excited, because it's good for his label. Now Peter is really into the idea of a concept. All his records are concept records. That's his whole thing, and he's very upfront about it. So he says, "You know what? I don't like this concept. I can't sell it. Bhangra—it doesn't make any sense to me. So I said, "Okay, and we're just sitting around talking, throwing ideas back and forth, and he says, "Martin Denny.

Now that's very interesting, because I had never heard of Martin Denny fifteen years ago, and [legendary producer] Hal Willner, who was my first supporter, who produced the first Spanish Fly record, said to me, "I love Spanish Fly; it really reminds me of Martin Denny. I said, "Yeah, okay, great. Hal would always mention things, and I had no idea what he was talking about, so I always had a pencil when I talked with him, and I would write things down. So I go and get this Martin Denny stuff and listen to it, and I like it. It's kind of cool, I like the vibe, and I know what he means; it's a kind of warm sound, and in Spanish Fly we used to a lot of these kinds of rhythms with our instruments, stuff like that. So, being a collector, I eventually ended up with every Martin Denny record.

So Peter says, "Martin Denny, and I just look at him and say, "Sexotica. Now we have to make the record, because we've got the title! Sexotica. So now the guys in my band are so busy that we couldn't find a weekend to do it for nine months. And Peter is so used to jazz musicians who need the thousand dollars they're going to make. I don't even think I've paid Tony or Kenny yet—they're so busy, they're out making tons with all the shit they do. So I think Peter was shocked.

AAJ: He thought you'd just walk to the car, get your instruments, and be ready to record.

SB: Yeah. He thought we'd just jump in and do the record. So he said, "When are you going to do the record? I said, "Listen, man, we're all busy making money. I can't go and make this little, cheap record for you because you want it! When we have some free time, we'll make your record. And it's so nice—I won't always be in this position, but right now I make my money doing music. I don't have to rely on these record company people with their little pittances. It's how I get my creative thing happening, but it's not how I make my living. I'm really lucky. I'm a trumpet player who works with Lou Reed, Marianne Faithfull, Sting—that's what I get to do for a living. But anyway, I wrote all this music and we went in and made the record. Kenny laid down all these percussion tracks afterwards, and it was really fun. We laid like two layers of percussion on every song. Basically, he had filled the entire room with percussion. Kenny has no time, every day he has two recordings and two gigs—so we'd get him for three or four hours at a time and we'd just go through every song. The first day, we did all wood percussion on every song. Then the second day, we did all metal percussion on every song. Then we did a third day with whistles, vibraphones, wind sounds. Every song has a minimum of two and usually three percussion tracks.

Then those Good and Evil guys just started doing their thing, reconstructing it all. I basically gave them total freedom. The only restriction was that we had this kind of manifesto that it would be equally divided between our natural sounds and the sounds that they created. It could be any kind of perspective—50/50, 80/20, 10/90, but overall it had to even out to 50/50 over the course of the entire record. One song could be all natural and the next one completely cut up. Which is pretty much how it is: one song is pretty much just the performance, and one song is all cut up.

AAJ: And then there are those ones that combine the two, like "Dick Contino's Blues, which is all sped-up and slowed-down, except for the breaks, which are left alone.

SB: Right, it's just the band playing. They did a great job. They gave me the rough mixes and I think I made like three comments, tiny comments, and said, "Fine. Finish it.

AAJ: You spoke about how Briggan can sound at times like a slide trumpet, and I think you two have always blurred your sounds. That's part of the band sound. But on this record, with all the Good and Evil production, and even without that, in the way the band is playing—there are moments where I can't even say what instrument I'm hearing.

SB: Yeah, if you weren't there at the recording session, there's no way you could know. Really. Because it's all been changed and altered, and because we're all sharing the same language.

AAJ: To me, "Kid Rock Deluxe and "Pygmy Suite feel like two versions of the same tune.

SB: Well, here's why you feel that. That vocal part from "Pygmy Suite is taken from "Kid Rock Deluxe. And here's how your ears are more open than some people: in some review, a guy referred to "the unfortunate scatting on "Pygmy Suite. Scatting! It's not like I'm sitting there going "shoo-be-do, it's like a sample from another song of me screaming that's been sped up and altered. [Disgustedly] Scatting. Obviously, this guy does not get what he's hearing [laughing]. But it's okay. It just shows where people are coming from when they're listening to things. This guy hasn't heard that much electronic music, so if he hears a voice on a jazz record, it's scatting.

AAJ: How do you deal with this material live?

SB: We haven't done it. We very rarely play songs from our records live. A lot of times, for the records, I'll just come up with some songs and bring them. And there are songs in our repertoire that we've been playing for years that have never been recorded. I did actually bring two of the songs from the record to the European tour. We played one, maybe two of them. "Dick Contino is actually one that we've been playing live. That's a live song. Things just get added to the repertoire. We just have so many songs that I don't feel the need to play the record. I just feel the need to do a good show.

AAJ: Tell me about the Baby Loves Jazz project. This is kids' tunes done jazz-style: jazz music for children. I know you just released the record Go Baby Go! (Verve, 2006), which you co-produced with [producer and Ropeadope Records head] Andy Hurwitz.

SB: Well, Andy had been talking about making a kids' record for a long time, and I had signed on to it. The original idea was pretty big: we'd get Blue Note to do it, and get Dr. John, Cassandra [Wilson], Macy Gray. That didn't happen; we couldn't get label support for it, so I said, "I'll just produce it myself. But the whole thing had been kind of unclear the whole time as to what we would do. So I said, "Okay, so what are we doing to do? Is it with two singers? I couldn't figure out if it was this thing where we go through the history of jazz. He'd talked about it being this multi-artist thing.

So I'd been hearing songs done with different bands—a Dixieland band, an Art Blakey band. And I suddenly realized we didn't have the option to do that. I had to come up with a record with one band that can do a bunch of different stuff. So the first thing I said was, "I have to have [keyboardist] John Medeski. People kind of don't really realize how great John Medeski is, because he's so famous for Medeski Martin & Wood. John Medeski is one of the greatest musicians on the planet; he's so heavy, he's so unbelievable. His skills are at such a high level. And I've played with a lot of great musicians. He just has an enormous level of skills. He commits 100% to what he does, and he can do more than just about anybody. He can play any kind of classical music, any kind of bebop music. Obviously, any kind of funk, R&B, gospel. And he's totally psychedelic.

AAJ: Yeah, everyone knows about that last part.

SB: Yeah, everyone knows that, but they don't know the other stuff. So once I got him, I got my band together and started writing arrangements. And we did it the same way I do everything—there was no rehearsal. The singers had never met anyone in the band, I had never met [singer] Sharon Jones. Everyone just showed up. And it just came out better than I could have imagined. I think it's really good. It's not dumbed-down, it's really entertaining. And we've got this great little live show that's really engaging with children and gets them going—but we're actually playing. We play these songs—I wrote a few more, and I use some songs from these books that Andy wrote that have CDs with them that I didn't do—[pianist] Aaron Goldberg and [saxophonist] John Ellis did them. So that's what it is. And I kind of see it as a way I can make some money over the next few years—it could be like Preservation Hall [laughing], and we could have a Baby Loves Jazz going out at all times.

AAJ: Well, Sharon Jones is a fantastic singer. You may not have gotten those huge names, but she's as good as anyone out there.

SB: She's better than anyone out there, because she's out there singing R&B every day of her life in front of huge audiences. There aren't a lot of people who can say that. In fact [laughing], I don't think there's anyone who can say that!

AAJ: And with no pitch correction. What do kids like? What do kids want in music?

SB: Kids like repetition. Kids like something where they can figure out what's happening—like if number one happens, then the next thing that should happen is number two. And it should be concise; there are no improvised solos on the record. Everything goes from event to event to event. I wrote these little solos, kind of like Dizzy Gillespie would use in the fifties. So instead of a solo, a kind of a bebop version of the melody is played, like a mini-big-band thing. So you can always hear the melody; the melody is always being referred to.

AAJ: When I was a kid, I just liked the words.

SB: We have the words there too, but I think the rhythm is really important. We had all the kids dancing at the shows. Some of the kids dance naturally to the music, this kind of crazy Little Richard meets punk-rock edition of the hokey-pokey. All the kids up there wiggling and dancing around.

AAJ: You're the bandleader for these ongoing tributes to singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen, Came So Far For Beauty. This produced the film I'm Your Man and the record of the same name. Were you a Cohen fan?

SB: Nope, nope. I'd never really heard him. Just another Hal Willner job. Hal called me up and said he wanted me to help him put together this concert, because he knows I'm good at organizing things. It was a multi-artist tribute, and Hal being Hal, he wanted us to do forty songs, he had three rehearsal days, and some of the musicians weren't coming in until the day of the concert [laughing]. So you have maybe nine, ten different artists.

So I think we had forty songs, with the contingency, you know, that David Bowie or some other ridiculously famous person might show up—we had to be able to handle that. So I put together this band which was basically Sex Mob and Charlie Burnham from MTO on violin, Marc Ribot on guitar and Rob Berger from Tin Hat Trio on keyboards. And we just did it, and it was a huge success, and this woman who was kind of related to our general family of musicians came up and said, "I've seen all the different things you've done for Hal, but this is different, this is brilliant, and blah-blah-blah. She produces Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson. She said, "I want to produce this. So I've done these things for Hal before that have happened once. You do a concert for Hal, and you do it for no money. Musicians are paid one or two hundred dollars each. That's for three rehearsals and an all-day gig. You do it because you love working for Hal; everyone loves Hal, and everyone knows that when there is money, Hal is happy to give it. And when there isn't, he just wants to do a project.

This is actually the first time I've done music where I can actually understand every word to every song. And I realize that's because they're not songs, they're stories.

AAJ: Yes, Cohen was a writer before he was a musician.

SB: Yeah, and so it's really easy for me to know what he's talking about. Oftentimes with songs, I'll start listening to the words and then I just get distracted. I start listening to the bass or the drums and then I realize I have no idea what they're saying. But with Leonard Cohen, you're just hearing the story go by, so it's very easy to stay focused on the story.

AAJ: You still had to arrange the songs musically.

SB: Yeah. But luckily, I had all my guys and gals up there, so it wasn't that hard.

AAJ: You're a member of former The Band drummer/singer Levon Helm's group. You're a big part of these Midnight Rambles up at his studio in Woodstock.

SB: People are beginning to hear about these now, I guess.

AAJ: Yeah, it seems like everyone is writing about these special, magical, musical happenings. Tell me about playing with Levon.

SB: It's been an incredible, educational, spiritual, musical part of my life for the last two years. I kind of ended up there for one of the early Rambles and he just took me in. My friend Erik Lawrence, the bassist from MTO, had been playing with him for a long time—back when Levon had no money and was doing really badly and couldn't sing [he had had throat cancer], my friend would do it as kind of a favor, because he loved Levon. Erik said, "Hey man, Le's doing these concerts up at his place. We don't really know what you're going to make, but if you ever make it, it would be great. I'd go, "Yeah, I'll try, I hope I can do it. So I did one once, and it happened to be the first one where Levon sang. He hadn't sung in five or six years, so it was this incredible thing. The Rambles were still pretty small at that point, and it was one of these magic moments. I was just back at Levon's house, and we were hanging out with some of the musicians, and I just ended up onstage with him playing, and it was like magic. It ended up on the first of these CD/DVDs Levon has out, and the stuff that's on it is from the first time I played with him. I didn't even know what song was, or what key it was in. It was like free improvisation—just listening and reacting.

But this kind of R&B music that he plays—I don't even know how to describe what he does. It's like folk-gospel-R&B-blues-jazz.

AAJ: That pretty much covers the music I'm into.

SB: Yeah [laughing]. It's been incredible. I've been doing these shows, and we've never had a rehearsal, but we hang out in his little place in the back before the gigs now and kind of talk about songs. And it's this really cool, tight band now. We do "Ophelia —I transcribed [Band organist] Garth [Hudson]'s arrangement. We do all these songs that have arrangements now, and it just gets better. It gets more and more powerful. The last show was interesting; it was the first time it was like a rock and roll crowd—before, it was really sedate, people just sitting there grooving—and people were just going insane after every tune. You felt like you were at a Rolling Stones show or something. Because originally, it was just locals.

AAJ: Yeah, it was a Woodstock thing, right?

SB: Yeah, it was a gig up in Woodstock that locals would come to, and now people are coming from all over the world to hear it. But it's really amazing to be around Levon. First of all, playing with him is so incredible, because he's such an incredible musician. And he's such an incredible person; he's so funny and so charming. Now, I take it for granted, but I really had to rethink the way I think about music to play with him.

The first time it was fine, because we just did a kind of New Orleans-ey type of thing and I kind of just went in that direction. But then, as we started doing more songs, more blues, I had to think about it. Because we'd be playing something, and he'd be like [imitating Helm's Arkansas accent], "Yeah, may-annnn, yay-ah! And then we'd be playing something and he'd be looking at me and going, "Nawww, may-an, naww! So I'm thinking, okay, there's the "Yeah-man and the "Naw-man and you don't want too many "Naws. Now we never get to "Naw-man ; we've kind of figured out what he likes and what he doesn't. But [laughing] you'd be playing something you were sure was the right thing, and he'd be standing there going, "Nawww, mann, naww!

It's interesting because, being a jazz musician, you think, "This is the same as this, because, you know, Count Basie did this. But as far as where Levon's coming from, there's a lot of my language that's not part of his language. It's great, because I started listening to a lot of the music Levon's into, all this blues music and R&B from Memphis and Nashville, so I could hear how all these guys played. When I played for Lou Reed the first time, the first horn arrangement I wrote for him, he said, "No, no, that's totally wrong! That's totally wrong! I'd written this thing that was kind of like an Allen Toussaint-style horn arrangement.

One thing about playing with Levon—my greatest record is probably Rock of Ages (Capital, 1973), where the Band played with Allen Toussaint. To me, it's up there with Duke Ellington and everything. But Lou doesn't feel things on the backbeat; he feels them on the front of the beat, he's a rock musician. So I've written this "boom-bah-doo, boom-bah-doo, and Lou wants "boom-chucka-boom-chucku. And I realized that's where his beat is. His beat isn't on the other side; it's not the New Orleans upbeat. It's the downbeat. Lou's definitely coming from Little Richard. There's definitely a lot of Little Richard in Lou Reed.

But anyway, it's been a great, spiritual thing for me to drive up north to Woodstock. Woodstock's a very magical place and Levon's property is very magical. And I used to be a hippie, so I spent a lot of time in parts of northern California and Seattle and northern Montana in an early part of my life. So it's a real return for me to that part of my life to be around that kind of environment. It's so cool, on a Saturday, instead of going to downtown New York, to go up to Woodstock. And it's part of a continual evolution as a person, just like listening to different music—it's bringing in different experiences which then give you different outlooks and a different perspective.

AAJ: And that sort of thing goes on forever.

SB: Hopefully. As long as you keep your eyes and your options open.

AAJ: So you're a trumpeter. But you're also a slide trumpeter. I did a random web search, just using the phrase "slide trumpet, and got an interesting hit. Here's what it said: "The slide trumpet is now rarely played with any serious intent. The only player of note that I know of is in a band called Sex Mob.

SB: Well, that's almost right. There's a guy in France, an Italian called Luca Bonvini. And he really plays the slide trumpet seriously. He was a trombone player and he basically stopped playing trombone; he only plays the slide trumpet. But he plays the opposite style that I do—he plays it very cleanly. I met him for the first time on a tour recently. He's a modern classical musician, that kind of modern classical that borders on improv, and he had this theory. There's a cello and a violin, right, and they're basically the same instrument—they have the same mechanics. But a violin's smaller, and violin players can play faster and more precisely than cello players. So his thinking was, "I play the trombone, but if I switch to slide trumpet, it's going to be the same concept: everything's going to be closer together, and I can actually be more precise.

So he plays very precisely. He made a record that he put out himself. And then there's Axel Dorner, who's a German, but I think he uses slide trumpet mainly for sounds. He plays it fairly regularly. And now it's beginning to crop up; there are some people in their twenties who are playing it. There's this guy named Brian Carpenter, who's from Boston. So people are beginning to play it, because of Sex Mob, basically—young people who came up hearing Sex Mob and said, "I'm going to get a slide trumpet. Even some professional trumpet players who are a little younger than me have recently bought slide trumpets and started to mess around. But yes—there is no recorded history to the horn, basically.

AAJ: So how did you end up picking it up?

SB: I got one in 1977. At that time, there were these horns that were very cheap that were made; they were kind of sitting around the music stores. They were like little novelty instruments, but they played okay. They didn't have a huge sound, they were kind of small—they weren't made of great metal or with great care. They were made to just sell to trumpeters, and you could get them at music stores very cheaply. So I saw one on a wall and it was like 25 dollars. Actually, Peter Apfelbaum and I were together and we both bought one in the summer of '77. Just 25 bucks, man! And I had it, and I'd keep it around—I'd always keep it around the house, even when I moved to New York from California. I could play a few things on it naturally; there were a few natural things I could play on it. And when I started Spanish Fly, I used to play it on a few songs. And I noticed that whenever I played it, there would be a big response. Obviously, it generated something with people. And I always give the credit to [trumpeter] Dave Douglas, man, because I was doing a gig in Austria, and Dave came up to the band. I don't know if you know Dave, if you've ever talked to him.

AAJ: I have talked to him.

SB: One of the smartest people I've ever met.

AAJ: Yes, he's obnoxious that way. He's so smart you'll feel dumb listening to him.

SB: Yeah [laughing], he can't help it. That's who he is. And he says to me, "Why don't you practice it? Practice it like a trumpet. And I said, "Yeah, you're right. So I just started practicing it, and I put together Sex Mob. The original idea behind Sex Mob was, what would happen if I had a band where I only had a slide trumpet? What could the slide trumpet do? And that's how it all started.

AAJ: Anything coming up for you we haven't mentioned?

SB: No, because whatever the next stuff is that's going to come up is kind of unknown at this point. I'd like to make a Spanish Fly record, because we started playing together again a year ago—we hadn't played for six years. We've got a new set of music we've put together. So I'd like to do that. And I have ideas for another project that I'm not ready to talk about yet, because it's not fully formed in my head. It's something I've been thinking about for a long time—another totally different thing. Something I haven't done yet. I don't really want to talk about it because I'm not quite sure what it is yet. I can see the outline of it in my head. But it has to do with some of my old New York friends from the eighties when I was part of this original punk-funk scene. That stuff was never really recorded, and I'd like to revisit some of that. Not revisit—but there's stuff echoing from that era that I'd like to re-explore.

Oh, and keep your eye out for Ropeadope's The Harlem Experiment. I did some really cool arrangements. Don Byron, me, and Carlos Alomar was the guitarist. He played all the guitar parts, and he's incredible.

Selected Discography

Baby Loves Jazz, Go Baby Go! (Verve Records, 2006)
Paul Shapiro, It's In the Twilight (Tzadik, 2006)
Steven Bernstein's Millenial Territory Orchestra, MTO Volume 1 (Sunnyside, 2006)
Sex Mob, Sexotica (Thirsty Ear, 2006)
Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Verve, 2006)
Paul Shapiro, It's In the Twilight (Tzadik, 2006)
Mario Pavone, Deez to Blues (Playscape, 2006)
Steven Bernstein, Diaspora Hollywood (Tzadik, 2004)
Bill Frisell, Unspeakable (Nonesuch, 2004)
Medeski Martin & Wood, End of theWorld Party (Just in Case) (Blue Note, 2004)
Mario Pavone, Orange (Playscape, 2003)
Sex Mob, Dime Grind Palace (Ropeadope/Atlantic, 2003)
Paul Shapiro, Midnight Minyan (Tzadik, 2003)
Max Nagl, Big Four (Hat Hut, 2002)
Marc Ribot, Soundtracks II (Tzadik, 2003)
Lou Reed, The Raven (Sire/Reprise, 2003)
Steven Bernstein, Diaspora Blues (Tzadik, 2002)
Mario Pavone, Mythos (Playscape, 2002)
Oren Bloedow and Jennifer Charles, La Mar Enfortuna (Tzadik, 2001)
Sex Mob, Sex Mob Does Bond (Ropeadope/Atlantic, 2001)
Karen Mantler, Karen Mantler's Pet Project (Universal, 2000)
Lou Reed, Ecstasy (Reprise, 2000)
Sex Mob, Solid Sender (Knitting Factory, 1999)
Kamikaze Ground Crew, Covers (Koch Jazz, 1999)
Steven Bernstein, Diaspora Soul (Tzadik, 1999)
Phillip Johnston, Music For Films (Tzadik, 1998)
Sex Mob, Den of Iniquity (Columbia/Knitting Factory, 1998)
Lounge Lizards, Queen of All Ears (Strange & Beautiful Music, 1998)
Spanish Fly, Fly By Night (Accurate, 1997) John Lurie, Excess Baggage: Original Score (Prophecy Entertainment, 1997)
Dreamtime, Dreamtime (Fibre Records, 1994)
Spanish Fly, Rags to Britches (Knitting Factory, 1993)
Medeski Martin & Wood, It's a Jungle in Here (Gramavision, 1993)

Photo Credits
Black and White Photos: Ziga Koritnik
Color Photos: Tony Rodgers

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