Peter Bernstein

Born and raised in New York City, guitarist Peter Bernstein has been one of the most highly regarded guitarists in jazz for the past 30 years. Noted for a clean, spare, melodic sound, Bernstein’s style has often been likened to Wes Montgomery’s and Grant Green’s. But he’s said that his approach to soloing and singular manner of phrasing was honed by listening to horn players, an approach emphasized by mentor Ted Dunbar, under whom Bernstein studied at Rutgers University. Bernstein would go on to study with Jim Hall at The New School, becoming one of Hall’s favorites. Of Bernstein as a musician, Hall once said, “He is the most impressive guitarist I’ve heard. For swing, logic, feel, and taste, he plays the best of them all.” And it was Hall who gave Bernstein his first big break, inviting him to play alongside Pat Metheny and John Scofield as part of a star-studded ensemble at the 1990 JVC Jazz Festival. Hall influenced Bernstein in myriad ways but particularly as an accompanist. It’s a skill that’s made Bernstein especially popular with Hammond organ players, leading to collaborations with organists like Pat Bianchi, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Mike LeDonne, Joey DeFrancesco, and Melvin Rhyne (among others). But Bernstein’s most fruitful guitar-organ collaboration has come with a guy he’s known since high school, organist Larry Goldings. Along with drummer Bill Stewart, the trio has played together since 1989, cutting dozens of records as, variously, the Larry Goldings Trio or the Peter Bernstein Trio. In 2007, The New York Times’ Nate Chinen called them “the best organ trio of the last decade.” It’s not just the organists who value Bernstein as a sideman. He played in Joshua Redman’s band from 1995-1997 and with Diana Krall’s quartet from 1999-2001, in addition to numerous recording sessions each with saxophonists Eric Alexander and Lou Donaldson. Donaldson was one of the first big jazz names to hire Bernstein in the early ’90s; he is reported to have said he thought he was listening to a Grant Green record the first time he heard Bernstein play. Preceding even that early relationship with Donaldson, however, was Bernstein’s relationship with the legendary, late drummer Jimmy Cobb. Cobb hired Bernstein to play with him at 21, and in the years leading up to Bernstein’s debut CD release as a leader, Cobb, Bernstein, bassist John Webber and a young Brad Mehldau played gigs around New York City as Cobb’s Mob. Bernstein’s debut as a leader, Somethin’s Burnin’ (1994), featured the Cobb’s Mob lineup, and in 2014, Smoke Sessions released a Cobb-led session featuring that very lineup titled The Original Mob. In 2019, Bernstein played on Cobb’s This I Dig of You, alongside Webber and pianist Harold Mabern. Cobb and Mabern would each pass within about a year of that album’s release, and Bernstein has made sure to honor both on his latest release with a version of “Blood Wolf Moon Blues,” a tune the three played together on what would turn out to be Cobb’s final recording. That most recent release, the latest of Bernstein’s over two dozen as a leader, titled What Comes Next, is an album both conceived and recorded during the Covid-19 quarantine. Just prior to NYC’s lockdown, Bernstein had a week-long engagement at the Village Vanguard, playing with pianist Sullivan Fortner and drummer Joe Farnsworth. Those two join Bernstein here, along with bassist Peter Washington. Among the other highlights of that new one are “Simple as That,” a tune originally from Bernstein’s 2003 release A Heart’s Content that he, Fortner, and Farnsworth had reprised for the Vanguard crowd in those last pre-Covid days, and “Newark News,” a tune written by Sonny Rollins that Bernstein played live with Rollins in 2010 and 2011 and that has been recorded for the first time, with Rollins’ blessing, on What Comes Next.

Photo Credit: Jimmy Katz