Changing Molecules: A Conversation with Steven Bernstein (Part Two)

We continue our conversation with Steven Bernstein by discussing his Community Music project more generally and what distinguishes Tinctures in Time (Royal Potato Family, 2021) from the forthcoming three albums in the series. We also consider Sexmob’s continued legacy on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the groundbreaking band’s founding, including the uniqueness of Bernstein’s choice to use the slide trumpet and the influences of John Lurie, Hal Willner, and Don Cherry. The first part of our conversation can be found here.

PostGenre: What was behind the idea of spreading the Community Music project over four albums? 

Steven Bernstein: I’ve been putting out records for about 30 years, going back to the band Spanish Fly. At a certain point, it just seems like you aren’t making the albums for yourself. I am not going to be some big famous musician. And there’s also no real need to revisit what I’ve already made as I think they all hold up. So, I only make new records if I feel like there’s something new that I can say. 

The original idea for the Community Music project was to document as many arrangements as possible that I had done for Hal [Willner], The Town Hall Ensemble, etc. I would get Bettye LaVette and Lisa Fischer to sing. I would also get all these different people like Pedrito Martinez, Nels [Cline], and Lenny Pickett, and just put something huge together. But it just cost way too much money to do that.  I started thinking more about the unifying idea behind that project.

I’ve lost a lot of people in the last few years and realized that, since none of us will be here forever, I wanted to document those closest to me while they were still with us. So, instead, I got together with one core group of guys and went in to record music for four days. I also have a lot of compositions that have barely been played. Most of the compositions on Tinctures in Time have barely been played live. They’ve been on paper but the opportunity to play live just never came up. And the focus became on performing these songs. 

While I knew that each day was going to have a different focus, I didn’t originally plan on four records. When I got the first record finished and played it for Hal, he told me “this is your music.” And I decided that it made sense to start shopping it around, which led me to bring the music to Kevin Calabro [the owner of Royal Potato Family]. I like to refer to Kevin as “the last of the true believers” because he just believes in music. I first met Kevin years ago when he was working for Joel Dorn, a guy whose records influenced me growing up. I didn’t know it at the time, I didn’t really even know what a producer did, but when you look back at all of these Rahsaan Roland Kirk or Yusef Lateef or Eddie Harris records that I loved, it was always Joel behind them. Joel was also Hal’s mentor  

When I brought the music from Tinctures in Time to Kevin, I told him I also had music from the other days and he decided to listen to the music from all four days. Being the true believer that he is, Kevin decided we should put them all out across a year. It’s obviously not a primarily financial decision on his part to present it this way, but instead based on a love of the music and getting its message out there.  

PG: What do you think sets Tinctures in Time apart from the other three albums? 

SB: Well, everyone who has listened to all four has their favorite. I thought the fourth one would be the weakest one. But when I played it for the guy who did the artwork for the album, he actually said it was his favorite. Each of the four is different enough that you’re going to encounter differing opinions on which one is the best.   

Focusing on Tinctures in Time specifically, Larry Campbell, was a big influence on me. Larry is so excellent and so committed to what we would call in jazz “simplicity.” Larry has a power –  Levon [Helm] did as well – to make very rich music without relying on harmonic complexity. That richness without relying on a ton of notes is almost closer to folk music in a sense.  I think you can hear that influence on both “Angels” and “Quart of Relativity” so I sent those two songs to him. After Larry had a chance to hear those songs, he sent me a note that said “man, I don’t know what that is, but everyone is going to want a part of it when they hear it.”

The album is taking those lessons I learned from people like Larry and Levon and combining it with basically The Band, Duke Ellington, and The Art Ensemble of Chicago. No one has ever done anything like that and I think it is a true expression of who we are as musicians.

The second album, Good Time Music, is a continuation, in a sense, of what I did with Levon or Henry [Butler]. It also features the great Catherine Russell. Though MTO Plays Sly (Royal Potato Family, 2011) featured vocals, there were also some instrumental tracks. This is the first album I’ve done where all the tracks have a vocal part. After making so many arrangements for vocalists, this was an opportunity to take what I’ve learned from Levon, Henry, Hal, and all the others and just do it on my own terms. Catherine is one of the few people who could stand in front of a band and record live like this. She is the consummate musician.

The third album continues Henry’s music. And the fourth one is doing what I’ve always done, taking someone else’s music and doing something personal with it.

But Tinctures in Time is the first time I’ve said “here is how all the stuff in my head is coming out right now.” It’s not stuff I’ve learned from studying, it’s stuff I’ve lived. It all comes from having played with Lou Reed, Levon, Henry, Roswell [Rudd], and Sam Rivers. From having played Duke Ellington’s music sitting next to Britt Woodman, Jerome Richardson, and Marcus Belgrave. This music comes from all of that stuff and is an expression of where I am in my life. There is also some kind of pathos or even sadness in the music. While I don’t want my music to make people sad, beauty is very complex. I have tragedy in my life, and there’s a certain honesty that comes with not being afraid of saying that is part of life too, you know? 

PG: “Angels” particularly sounds a little sad. Was it specifically inspired by people you had lost over the last couple of years? 

SB: Not specifically, but that’s what it is. My music is never inspired by anything specific. But, yeah, that is what you are feeling when you hear that song. I have been listening to “Angels” for almost 18 months and it still makes me cry. It’s still very intense for me to listen to that song just because it is so honest. At the same time, I don’t want people to be sad. I want to celebrate all of the beauty in life. I want to celebrate who was here, that we were able to experience being with them, and that we are still here.

PG: It also seems the guitar is a little more prominent on Tinctures in Time than on your other records.  

SB: Very good, man. Very good. Yes, and I will tell you something interesting about that. 

Previously, with the Millennial Territory Orchestra (MTO), the guitar always held the rhythm part. But there is something you can play on the guitar that is very unique to the instrument. I wasn’t even aware of these qualities in any personal sense until I started performing with Levon. I mean, I had heard them on records before, but those qualities weren’t something I felt like I had a particular connection to. This part of the music is also why I had sent those songs to Larry. A lot of the songs I wrote for this album incorporated that kind of guitar playing. 

But the guitar is not only being played in a more upfront way, it is also being mixed in a unique way. Right before we mixed it, I had been in Jamaica with Little Feat and Los Lobos. I’ve been playing with Little Feat for years now but I’ve always loved Los Lobos. In MTO’s prior albums, we never treated the guitar. Matt [Munisteri] plays a very traditional hollow body guitar and we’ve always let the sound be what it was. But when we started mixing it, David [Hidalgo]’s music with Los Lobos and his incredible guitar sounds were fresh in my mind. So, I said, “let’s have some fun with the guitar.” And the result modifies how the guitar sounds compared to when it was in the room.  

PG: To shift gears a little, it has been twenty-five years since you first formed Sexmob. How do you feel that band was influenced by your work with the Lounge Lizards or with Hal? 

SB: Both John [Lurie] and Hal influenced my life in general. In the early 80s, when I got to New York and was working with people in the East Village, I started thinking about whose music I loved. I realized that two names that stood out were John and Hal. I also noticed neither had that many trumpet players on any of their records. And so, I decided I was going to work towards being their trumpet player. [laughing]. And I did. There is probably a lot of influence from both of them that has been so ingrained that I might not even realize it.  

The Lounge Lizards’ influence on Sexmob comes from my interaction with the audience. John taught me how to interact with an audience. He taught that you could be comfortable being yourself with an audience. Sexmob has always had its own sound and I don’t know how much of it was influenced by the Lounge Lizards, but that band certainly influences how we present ourselves and the idea of being comfortable being yourself on stage.  

PG: Do you feel like Sexmob was ahead of its time?

SB: Oh man, so far ahead of its time. 

Even the packaging we used for albums was ahead. If you pull all of my records there is only one with my picture on it. I’d rather have cool art on the album than a picture of myself. It wasn’t common at the time but, now, everyone does that.  

Sonically, Sexmob was also way ahead of its time. The idea of approaching pop music wasn’t anything new. Even Louis Armstrong approached the pop music of his day. But, over the years, some people have tried to impose this false narrative that somehow pop songs written by Jewish guys in the lower east side in the 1910s were good while those written by people born in England in the 1950s, Michigan in 1947, or wherever, were not worthy of playing. I never believed in that. I always thought that if you can’t see the greatness in other music, that’s your problem, not the song’s problem.  

I think, on every level, Sexmob has been ahead of the curve. And it is interesting because it is still ahead of the curve. Actually, I didn’t want to talk about it, but I have a Sexmob record that’s going to come out soon too. It was also recorded before the pandemic but we’re still working on mixing it. After 25 years, we are still playing and bringing in new songs to every gig. I always tell people that if they come to a Sexmob gig, they will hear a song from our very first gig 25 years ago and something they’ve never heard before. 

PG: Who do you feel has followed in the lead Sexmob created? 

SB: Well, I think in a sense everybody has. [laughing]. I think our approach to a wide range of music signaled to other people that it was okay to like many different kinds of music. It also changed the perception some people have of horn music. I meet musicians all the time who were in college when Din of Inequity (Sony, 1998) came out. They often tell me that the album made them realize horn players could make cool records. Now, people don’t think twice about horn players making a cool record. I doubt Kamasi Washington has ever heard of Sexmob, but he’s the right age group that maybe he has. 

To some extent, I think we made it safe for horn players to feel like they can do whatever they want. They don’t have to sound like Miles Davis in 1956. Or even Miles Davis in 1973. They can just be themselves. I think we were one of the bands of our generation who embraced who we were. We didn’t ignore tradition, but the music was still really just us. 

PG: Speaking of going your own way, do you feel like playing the slide trumpet has given you more freedom to do your own thing? 

SB: Oh, way more. I think it is very hard, especially for young people when they are starting out to say “well, this is what I am doing.” A lot of times they end up stuck, essentially recreating something someone else did.  When you play trumpet, you always carry the weight of Louis Armstrong, of Miles Davis, of Wynton Marsalis, of all these amazing masters who were there. Even when you try not to think about them, they are there. And even someone like me who is more into the music of Don Cherry, Rex Stewart, and Cootie Williams, they’re there too. But with the slide trumpet, you have complete freedom. There’s not really anyone to compare your sound to. And that lack of comparisons gave me the freedom to not worry much about what other people did before me.  

PG: Since you mention Don Cherry, do you think he may have felt the same thing when he took out the pocket trumpet/pocket cornet? 

SB: Yeah, I think that he did. There’s been a lot of stuff about Don and Moki Cherry lately and I feel a need to acknowledge that this is where I came from.  Actually, Sexmob’s concept is based on Don Cherry. 

In Sexmob’s live shows, we don’t just play the head, then some solos, then repeat the head and then clap.  That sort of formalism seems to have taken over most “jazz” performances, but it didn’t always exist. It’s not like jazz had to be like “that.” That’s not what Duke Ellington did and it’s not what early New Orleans music was like. But at some point, it became like that a lot of the time. Instead, with Sexmob, we just start playing and keep going from song to song with different ideas throughout until the end. I learned that from how Don presented his music. The more structured approach wouldn’t always resonate with people. 

I would always take dates to see Don Cherry at the [Village] Vanguard because he was one of those guys who broke that strict structure open. Instead, Don’s structure is almost like watching a movie or reading a novel. You are just on the trip. Like Don, my music has always focused on transforming people, I’m not just playing a song to have people clap or marvel at what I can do. My music is not just about me. It’s all about getting the listeners to feel something. And that is something that I got from Don.  

The Millennial Territory Orchestra’s Tinctures in Time (Community Music, Vol. 1) will be released on September 3, 2021 on Royal Potato Family. More information can be found on the label’s website or on Steven’s Bandcamp. Further information on Steven can be found on his site.