Peter Bernstein - Better Angels

September 30, 2024

Label: Smoke Sessions Records, 2024

Personnel - Peter Bernstein: guitar; Brad Mehldau: piano; Vicente Archer: bass; Al Foster: drums.

Guitarist and composer Peter Bernstein, who blew my mind with albums such as Signs of Life (Criss Cross, 1995) and Strangers in Paradise (Tokuma Records, 2004), returns to the quartet format with Better Angels, after two trio sessions with Larry Goldings and Bill Stewart. For this release, Bernstein assembled a multi-generational ensemble featuring longtime collaborator and renowned pianist Brad Mehldau, bassist Vicente Archer, and legendary drummer Al Foster, with whom Bernstein played before but never recorded.

The album kicks off with Bernstein’s “Perpetual Pendulum”, a slow-burn groover that first appeared on his 2022 trio album of the same name. The track blends dulcet melodicism with an elegant, swaying pulse that lays the foundation for the soloists. Bernstein’s signature lyricism convenes bluesy phrasing and jazz coloring filled with chromaticism, while Mehldau’s logic narratives include chained melodic ideas that rise and fall with passion.

Tracks like “Ditty For Dewey” and “Hazel Eyes”, dedicated to family members, achieve a pleasing balance, with the latter being a richly textured ballad. “Better Angels”, likely inspired by Bernstein’s children, is a suave, in-the-pocket 3/4 piece where to Mehldau brings delicate trills, breaking points, and subtle dynamic shifts. Bernstein also delivers two solo performances: Mel Tormé/Robert Wells’s “Born To Be Blue” and J.J. Johnson’s “Lament”. The latter, introduced by a strikingly dissonant chord, stands out as the guitarist weaves together improvised melodies and harmonic coloration with keen sensibility.

The album’s two standards offer contrasting impressions. While “You Go to My Head” remains a straightforward, perhaps unsurprising interpretation, Duke Jordan’s “No Problem” emphasizes atmosphere and rhythm. Foster drives the track with a bubbling bossa groove, eventually trading eights with the band to close out the tune in style.

Better Angels is a smooth jazz album that simmers rather than boils, presenting familiar jazz elements while occasionally enchanting with its refined sonic treatments and thoughtful arrangements. Though far from groundbreaking, the album shines in its moments of graceful nuance.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Perpetual Pendulum ► 07 - No Problem ► 08 - Lament

Larry Goldings / Peter Bernstein / Bill Stewart - Perpetual Pendulum

March 29, 2022

Label: Smoke Sessions Records, 2022

Personnel - Larry Goldings: Hammond B3 organ; Peter Bernstein: guitar; Bill Stewart: drums.

The trio of keyboardist Larry Goldings, guitarist Peter Bernstein and drummer Bill Stewart, puts out Perpetual Pendulum, their 18th album, celebrating a fruitful musical cooperation that has lasted for more than 30 years. Their musical tastes and inclinations reflect on the repertoire chosen for each recording, and there are some great additions here.

Let’s start with the opening Wayne Shorter tune, “United”, whose wittiness and groovy flamboyance should put it back in circulation. The interaction is spot on, with Goldings and Bernstein trading fours with the drummer after their respective first-class solos. The same applies to Gary Bartz’s “Libra”, which, developing at a boiling tempo, delivers a bubbling A section that recalls the disco songs of the Bee Gees. It swings with undeniable passion the very next moment. Goldings and Stewart are solid like a tree trunk, and this is also true on “Django”, a straight-ahead number imbued with the spirit of Jim Hall and Joe Pass, an impression reinforced by Bernstein’s haunting introduction.

Goldings has the capacity to extract ideas from classic tunes and transfer them into songs with a twist of his own. This is the case with “Let’s Get Lots”, which fashions recognizable melodic portions of “Let’s Get Lost”, a jazz standard notably performed by Chet Baker in the 1950s, and “Prelude”, which, inspired by Duke Ellington’s “Prelude #2”, gets an alluring bluesy feel here. Ellington is evoked once again through the rendition of one of his famous ballads, “Reflections in D”, whereas the effulgent “Come Rain or Come Shine” cradles our hearts with warmth. The keyboardist and the guitarist improvise magnetically, exchanging phrases in the choruses that lead to the theme.

Also deserving mention, Stewart’s “FU Donald” is a jazz meets funk-rock number with challenging meter signatures and a spine-shivering figure at the center that slides chromatically along the way. This is Goldings/Bernstein/Stewart trio playing at full tilt.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - United ► 05 - FU Donald ► 06 - Come Rain or Come Shine

Larry Goldings / Peter Bernstein / Bill Stewart - Toy Tunes

May 3, 2018

Label: Pirouet, 2018

Personnel – Larry Goldings: hammond organ; Peter Bernstein: guitar; Bill Stewart: drums.

The trio of jazz organist Larry Goldings, guitarist Peter Bernstein and drummer Bill Stewart, has started their adventures back in 1991 with the album Intimacy of the Blues, at that time led by the organist . Toy Tunes, a collective effort, is their twelfth album, and like has been happening before, includes originals penned by all the three musicians, jazz standards, and other remarkable compositions by creative minds such as Wayne Shorter and Carla Bley.

The trio opens the session with “Fagen”, an easy-going ride marked by an affable melody. Goldings dedicates it to the adult contemporary rock singer and keyboardist Donald Fagen, one of the two co-founders of Steely Dan. One can enjoy a sweet relaxation in this song, which leisurely unfolds from the smooth theme to dedicated improvisations by the organist and the guitarist.

Stewart’s “Don’t Ever Call Me Again” was first included on Scott Colley Quartet’s 1997 album Subliminal, getting the first-rate treatment here as it shapes into a sultry groovy song conform to a 6/4-meter signature. The melody, empathically expressed with playful irony by Bernstein, is placed on the top of the rich organ harmonies and contagious drumming pulse.

Bernstein is a masterful colorist, both harmonically and melodically, and his rubato introductory section of “Lullaby For B”, a waltz he wrote for his son, carries shades of Jim Hall in the chord voicings.

Both the standard “I’m In The Mood For Love” and Charles Strouse’s “Maybe”, a number from his Broadway musical Annie, follow similar structural alignments, with Goldings designing the A sections of the theme and Bernstein taking care of the Bs. The latter piece spreads a swinging perfume that favors the rounded post-bop trajectories of the guitarist. After the respective improvisations, guitarist and organist team up by alternating eight bars of logical, creative phrasing before Stewart’s tasteful attacks.

Shorter’s “Toy Tune” is presented with less 30 seconds than the original version, which dated from 1980, and comes wrapped in the same sophisticated harmonic complexity. However, I missed the sound of the saxophone and the tune didn’t touch me as much as Carla Bley’s “And Now The Queen”, a beautiful four-bar melody reiterated with a mutable expressionistic touch. This song, tackled many times by pianist Paul Bley in solo mode, loses its reflective nicety in detriment of a futuristic organ-driven experimentalism. It never loses its achingly emotional quality, though.

With an incredible facility of adaptation, the trio dynamically convenes a set of jazz compositions for all tastes, treating each note, chord, and pulsation with a fleshed-out sense of purpose.

Favorite Tracks:
01 - Fagen ► 02 - Don’t Ever Call Me Again ► 05 - And Now The Queen