Earthwise welcomes Bernstein Horvitz & Singleton’s Tricoastal Consortium

Tricoastal Consortium

Earthwise welcomes a jazz summit with stalwarts of the scenes, in the Bay Area, New York, New Orleans and Seattle: Steven Bernstein, slide trumpet; Wayne Horvitz, piano, and James Singleton, upright bass and pocket trumpet. Peforming as the Tricoastal Consortium, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, three nights.

Old friends since way back when, the group performs as a compact trio at Palo Alto Mitchell Park Community Center, El Palo Alto room, which has intermittently served as a music workshop and listening room.

The group will distill from voluminous experiences:

An impactful presence on the New York scene over the past 30 years, trumpeter, composer, arranger and bandleader Steven Bernstein has immersed himself in such a wide array of music with his bands Sexmob, Millennial Territory Orchestra, Diaspora Soul, Universal Melody Brass Band, Spanish Fly, Blue Campfire and the Butler-Bernstein Hot 9 that he defies easy categorization. A former member of the Lounge Lizards and Levon Helm's Midnight Ramble Band,

Bernstein has also composed works for film, theater and dance in addition to doing arrangements for a diverse list of artists ranging from Lou Reed to Lee "Scratch" Perry, Allen

Toussaint, Marianne Faithfull, Linda Ronstadt, Rufus Wainwright, Darlene Love, Mario Pavone, Bill Frisell, John Lurie and the Kansas City All-Stars. His lengthy list of sideman credits includes recent recordings by Laurie Anderson (Heart of a Dog), Roswell Rudd (Trombone for Lovers), Mostly Other People Do The Killing (Loafer's Hollow), Antony and the Johnsons (Turning) and Nels Cline (Lovers). He also continues to perform with Ray Anderson's Pocket Brass Band, Omaha Diner and the Kamikaze Ground Crew.

Born on October 8, 1961 in Berkeley, California, Bernstein was hugely influenced by his Berkeley School band director, Phil Hardymon, who instilled in his students a sense of disciplined

ensemble playing in the Count Basie tradition. In 6th grade, Bernstein formed what would become a lifelong friendship and musical partnership with saxophonist Peter Apfelbaum, later the leader of the Hieroglyphics Ensemble. The two would attend performances in the Bay Area by Eddie Harris, Sam Rivers, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon, Roland Kirk and Woody Shaw at the Keystone Korner and a series of solo concerts by Leo Smith, Lester Bowie, Oliver Lake and Baikida Carroll as well as one eye-opening gig by the Art Ensemble of Chicago at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall. Bernstein studied in Berkeley with former Woody Herman and Stan Kenton trumpeter John Coppola and after moving to New York in 1978 was mentored by lead trumpeter and ubiquitous session man Jimmie Maxwell, who had replaced Harry James in the Benny Goodman Orchestra in the early 1940s.

Bernstein joined John Lurie's outfit the Lounge Lizards in 1990, appearing on the group's 1991 release Live in Berlin on the Intuition label.

Shortly before that, in 1988 he had formed the daring Spanish Fly trio with slide guitarist Dave Tronzo and tuba virtuoso Marcus Rojas. They began performing at the Knitting Factory and subsequently released 1994's Rags to

Britches on Knitting Factory Works and 1996's Fly By Night on Accurate Records. By 1995, producer Hal Willner, a fan of Spanish Fly, enlisted Bernstein as arranger for the soundtrack to Robert Altman's film Kansas City, which led to collaborations on other Willner projects, including arranging for Jazz Foundation of America benefit concerts (featuring singers Lou Reed, Bono, Darlene Love, Macy Gray, Elvis Costello and Dr.

John) at the Apollo Theatre, tributes to Bill Withers, Doc Pomus and Leonard Cohen at Celebrate Brooklyn and arranging work on the soundtrack for the 2005 documentary film, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man.

In 1996, Bernstein formed Sexmob with saxophonist Briggan Krauss, bassist Tony Scherr and drummer Kenny Wollesen. It remains his primary vehicle for exploring the slide trumpet, a rare instrument that he picked up in a Woodstock guitar shop back in 1977. Sexmob made its recording debut with 1998's Din of Inequity and followed with 2000's Solid Sender, 2001's Sex Mob Does Bond, 2003's Dime Grind Palace, 2006's Sexotica, 2009's Sex Mob Meets Medeski:

Live in Willisau and 2013's Cinema, Circus & Spaghetti: Sex Mob Plays Fellini. In that span of recordings, the group put their patented Sexmob touch on an eclectic list of tunes by the likes of Leadbelly, John Barry, Hoagy Carmichael, Paul McCartney, Duke Ellington, Prince, Kurt Cobain, the Rolling Stones, James Brown, Count Basie, Professor Longhair and Nino Rota. The group's latest, in its 20th anniversary year, is Cultural Capital, the first Sexmob recording to feature all Bernstein original compositions.

From 1999 to 2008, Bernstein contributed four recordings to John Zorn's Radical Jewish Culture series on his Tzadik label - 1999's Diaspora

Soul (featuring members of the Lounge Lizards and Sex Mob), 2002's Diaspora Blues (featuring jazz legend Sam Rivers), 2004's Diaspora Hollywood (inspired by the classic film composers and the West Coast cool jazz sound) and 2008's Diaspora Suite (a kind of homecoming,

recorded in San Francisco with some fellow Bay Area musicians he grew up with). Each project cleverly combined traditional cantorial songs and elements of jazz, blues and rock, with Bernstein serving as composer-arranger-producer and trumpeter/slide trumpeter.

Recipient of the 2019 American Prize in Orchestral Composition, composer Wayne Horvitz performs extensively throughout Europe, Japan, and North America. In addition to creating work for his own ensembles, he has created new work for The Kitchen, BAM, Seattle Symphony, Berlin Jazz, Nocco, Vienna Radio Orchestra, Centrum, and ACT among others. He has received awards from, MAP, McKnight Foundation, the NEA, Meet the Composer, and The Shifting Foundation. among others. Narrative works include pieces centered around the life of Joe Hill, the story of the Everett Massacre, and the poems of Richard Hugo. Installation work has been presented at Ft. Worden, SAM and Arizona State Museum of Art. He is the recipient of the 2016 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award.

Collaborators include Robin Holcomb, Bill Frisell, Reggie Watts, Butch Morris, Alex Guy, Ikue Mori, George Lewis, Steve Swallow, Yukio Suzuki, Billy Bang, Carla Bley, Eyvind Kang, John Zorn (Naked City etc.), Bill Irwin, Gus Van Sant, Paul Taylor, Beth Fleenor, Rinde Eckert, Yohei Saito, Barbara Earl Thomas, David Moss, Carey Perloff, Paul Taylor, Dayna Hanson, and Gus Van Sant. He has produced recordings for the WorldSaxophone Quartet, Human Feel, Fontella Bass, Marty Ehrlich, John Adams, Bill Frisell, Robin Holcomb, and Eddie Palmieri.

James Singleton is one of New Orleans’– if not the country’s – most adventurous and energetic stand-up bassists. He is perhaps most noted for his membership in the contemporary jazz quartet Astral Project, but he is also a composer, producer, bandleader, and one of the most in-demand sidemen in town. He is an aural innovator, and collaborates with some of the day’s leading artists to break musical boundaries. All the while, his infectious smile and enthusiasm light up any performance space.

Born in Chicago in 1955, Singleton went to college briefly to study jazz, but moved to New Orleans in 1976 to play with legendary Louisiana bluesman Clarence “Gatemouth Brown. He began gigging with James Booker and Ellis Marsalis, and formed Astral Project with Johnny Vidacovich, Steve Masakowski, Tony Dagradi, and Dave Torkanowsky.

Over his four-decade career he has played and recorded with a lengthy list of legends: John Scofield, Chet Baker, John Abercrombie, Lionel Hampton, Art Baron, Eddie Harris, Alvin “Red” Tyler, and Earl Turbinton, among others.

His contemporary projects include work with Skerik, Stanton Moore, Helen Gillet, Robert Walter, and John Medeski. He fronts his own eponymous combos, 3 Now 4, and, most recently, Nolatet, which includes Mike Dillon on vibes, Brian Haas on piano, and Johnny Vidacovich on drums.

Singleton has toured the world with a number of different groups, and at home is the go-to bassist to call for a gig. He has recorded on countless albums, and has collected a shelf-load of awards and honors.

Event Venue

Mitchell Park Community Center, 3700 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto, United States