Jazz Articles about Peter Bernstein

About Peter Bernstein

In Pictures

Peter Bernstein with the Jimmy Masters Trio at The Sandler Center

by Mark Robbins
October 5, 2026

Jazz musicians often have a musical conversation onstage. One musician introduces an idea, another responds, and the music develops through that back and forth. They listen closely to one another, picking up on rhythms, melodies, and small changes in the moment. The result can feel spontaneous and personal, as if the musicians are speaking to one another without words. When guitarist Peter Bernstein joined the Jimmy Masters Trio, it felt like you were listening in on a conversation ...

Catching Up With

Goldings, Bernstein & Stewart on 35 Years Together and Their New Album

by Leo Sidran
August 18, 2026

You can tell a lot about a band by the way they act offstage, how they talk to one another, and even more, how they listen. By the quality of their conversation. It's a useful measure when talking about Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein, and Bill Stewart, a trio whose history stretches back more than three decades, and whose music still depends on that same essential exchange. Logging onto a Zoom call with them, it's immediately clear ...

Album Review

Harvie S: Bright Dawn

Read "Bright Dawn" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 3, 2026

At a time when economics often dictates the size and scope of a jazz group, adding a guitarist to a typical piano-bass-drums trio makes a world of difference. And when said guitarist is Peter Bernstein, the difference is even more pronounced. That gives bassist Harvie S a clear headstart on Bright Dawn, a modest studio date with Bernstein broadening the usual trio setting on the bassist's 21st recording as leader of his own ensemble--the first, however, following a 15-year hiatus. ...

Album Review

Harold Mabern: Afro Blue (10th Anniversary Edition)

Read "Afro Blue (10th Anniversary Edition)" reviewed by Bridget A. Arnwine

by Bridget A. Arnwine
January 28, 2026

Pianist Harold Mabern (1936-2019) was talented beyond measure. Though he never received the honor and distinction of the prestigious NEA Jazz Master designation, his music and the musicians who knew him tell a different story. That story unfolds beautifully throughout the 10th anniversary reissue of Mabern's 2015 recording, Afro Blue (Smoke Session Records). The newly remixed and remastered recording features performances from some of the most celebrated names in vocal jazz, including Gregory Porter, Norah Jones, Kurt Elling, Jane Monheit, ...

Liner Notes

Melvin Rhyne: Tomorrow Yesterday Today

by C. Andrew Hovan
November 9, 2025

A disciple of some of the earliest jazz organ practitioners, such as Jackie Davis, Milt Buckner, and Wild Bill Davis, jazz veteran Melvin Rhyne's major claim to fame has been the five years he spent with the renowned Wes Montgomery in the early '60s. Yet this is really only a fraction of the story for the 67-year-old organist. Much like the proverbial hibernating bear, Rhyne kept a low profile throughout the '70s and '80s and he even told writer Pete ...

Album Review

Mike LeDonne's Groover Quartet: Turn It Up!: Live at the Sidedoor

Read "Turn It Up!: Live at the Sidedoor" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
October 25, 2025

For over twenty-five years, Mike LeDonne's Groover Quartet has been a shining example of consistency and authenticity in the organ-jazz scene. The latest double-disc release, Turn It Up!: Live at the Sidedoor, captures the group at two different moments in time: 2024 at the Sidedoor Jazz Club in Old Lyme, Connecticut, and 2004 at Vancouver's Cellar Jazz Club. These two recordings offer an intriguing glimpse into a band that has never aimed to reinvent itself, only to refine its sound, ...

Album Review

Mike LeDonne's Groover Quartet: Turn It Up!

Read "Turn It Up!" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
October 12, 2025

Turn It Up!, the latest recording by organist Mike LeDonne's superb and long-lived Groover Quartet, is actually a two- CD set that reprises concert sessions recorded twenty years apart--the first, You'll See! (Cellar Records, 2004) in Vancouver's now- defunct Cellar Jazz Club, the second,Turn It Up!, in 2024 at Ken Kitchings' The Side Door in Old Lyme, Connecticut. It is hard to say what is most remarkable about the concerts: that the group has preserved its uncommon mastery and rapport ...