Peter Bernstein Talks About “Better Angels”

In this exclusive interview, Peter Bernstein talks to JGT’s Joe Barth about his recent album, Better Angels.

Peter Bernstein is one of the leading jazz guitarists on the scene today.  Born in New York City in 1967, Peter has performed with the “Who’s Who” of jazz musicians since Jim Hall invited him to perform at the JVC Jazz Festival in 1990 while he was still a student at the New School in New York City.  With over twenty-five records to his name, Peter has just released a new album, Better Angels, featuring longtime friend and pianist Brad Mehldau.

JB:  Other than a recent conversation with JGT editor Bob Bakert, it has been about four years since you were featured in Jazz Guitar Today. Other than What Comes Next, your most recent releases have been with your long-time friends, organist Larry Goldings and drummer Bill Stewart.  Talk about the special musical relationship you have with these two musicians.

PB:  Well, we three first started playing together in 1989 and got a chance to record the next year thanks to the late great recording engineer David Baker, who connected us with Stephen Meyner, who had a record label in Germany. We made two CDs for him, and getting to record early on solidified our connection as a trio. We’ve been able to keep it going ever since, recording and playing gigs around Europe, the US, and Japan. Just having such a long history with these two amazing musicians, who had their own musical identities way back then, and continued to grow and get deeper has been a great learning experience for me. We all feel comfortable with each other which in turn gives us the feeling of security to really try for things when we play together. These guys know my playing so well I feel the challenge to play different things. Over the years the collective sound has become more and more unified just from all the time spent playing together. It’s a beautiful and unique situation and I am so grateful to have the opportunity to play with such incredible musicians throughout my entire adult life. 

JB:  To learn a little more about what shaped your musical values on the guitar, to you, what are three of the most influential guitar albums and why? 

PB:  My musical values exist outside of the guitar. I have learned so much from musicians other than guitarists. Saxophone, trumpet players, piano players, singers, bass players, drummers, every instrument played by someone with musical values and aesthetics I love and appreciate has shaped me. The guitar players I love the most are the ones who just use the guitar to get their music out. There are many I appreciate as guitarists in terms of how they play or played the instrument, yet I can’t say they’ve shaped me as a musician. 

In all the guitarists I love, from Jimi Hendrix to Jim Hall, and Mississippi John Hurt to Charlie Christian and Albert Collins, and Wes Montgomery to Paco DeLucia to Eric Gale….they all sound to me like they use the guitar to express their voice. Once I feel that someone is playing the guitar out of love for the guitar more than love for just music, I’m left a little cold. My musical values come from so many people besides guitarists. I have to admit that the instrument is way less important to me than a sense of phrasing, melody, rhythm, harmony, narrative, and sound that is all in balance. What impresses me is when the instrument disappears and you see the person and how they think and feel. 

Having said all that, three albums by guitarists that really changed my life were Wes Montgomery: Smokin’ At The Half Note, Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane (the 2 sessions with Tommy Flanagan), and Grant Green: Solid.  These three records turned my head around because I was so attracted to the personality of these players: how different they were yet how they all came from the blues. A big thing about those records was the other players on the records. Coltrane had a big effect on me, so I went to check out all of his records and that world opened up to me. The rhythm section on the Wes record had pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb on drums, who were Miles Davis’ band and sent me to that era of Miles. McCoy Tyner and Joe Henderson blew my mind on the Grant Green record and sent me to their records. 

These three records turned me on to so much music that I have to name them as being life-changing, but it was all in context with learning about Duke Ellington and the fifty-plus years of music he made, and Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Sonny Rollins, and Monk. Also, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and so many others. Charlie Christian’s recordings of course I loved. He had the drive and swing of the saxophone players. He seemed to absorb that language and use the guitar to express what he needed to. I heard this same quality in a different way with Wes, Kenny, and Grant. George Benson’s early records with Lonnie Smith also made a big impression. Of course, when I first heard all these guys, I had zero idea what they were actually doing, I just loved the feeling, attitude, and swagger everyone had, all in their own unique way.

JB:  You have also had a long musical relationship with pianist Brad Mehldau, what do you appreciate most about playing with him?

 PB:  I first met Brad in 1989 when we were at the New School together. Right away, I heard a completely unique and deep musician. He was like a sponge, he picked up on everything around him and he had a solid foundation in all kinds of music. He just had such a special and strong feeling about his playing. He heard everything and could instantly incorporate everything he heard. Early on, we were lucky to get to play some gigs with Jimmy Cobb, who was teaching at the New School. We had a class with him where we just played tunes and we both felt something playing with him we knew was the real thing. We asked him if he would play with us if we got some gigs and he was into it so we both had a very important and fortuitous lesson in playing with him and feeling where he put the beat. Brad played so beautifully with Jimmy and then went on to form his own trio where he really established himself as a truly unique and important voice in jazz music and all music.  He has just kept on expanding and experimenting with new sounds and ideas. I remember back then being around both he and Larry Goldings, thinking that I couldn’t be more fortunate to be around those guys, they knew so much music and just seemed to have new musical ideas every time they played. Being able to play with Brad still every now and then really means a lot to me. He is truly one of heaviest listeners and somehow makes everyone around him listen deeper and has the ability to open up the music always while still being so clear and having such conviction in what he plays. 

JB:  Tell us about your goals in making your new album Better Angels with Brad and drummer Al Foster and Vicente Archer on bass. 

PB:  There weren’t so many goals in that it all came together really fast. Paul Stache from Smoke Sessions records asked if I wanted to put a date together maybe three weeks before and said Brad would be in town, he had been in touch with him about some dates in his club. We had been talking about trying to record with Brad and Al Foster. He was available and we were lucky to get Vicente Archer on bass who I had played with a bit, and he was on Al’s last date for Smoke Sessions so it all came together. I had some newer tunes that I hadn’t really played much and wanted to try them with these incredible musicians. We weren’t able to rehearse so it all happened in the studio. The originals took a bit more time and we called some other tunes everyone was familiar with and did one or two takes of those. I wanted to put a couple of short solo things on there too as Paul said they were making a vinyl record with 2 sides I figured to end each side with a solo piece. 

JB:  What Comes Next, your previous quartet record, had a completely different trio (pianist Sullivan Fortner, bassist Peter Washington, drummer Joe Farnsworth), all excellent musicians!  As a guitarist, what did the Better Angels trio bring out of you that was different than what the What Comes Next trio inspired you in?

PB:  I am very inspired by all of those musicians, individually and collectively. I think anyone would be as they all are so great. The sessions were very different, What Comes Next was recorded in June 2020, so it was a bit surreal just to able to gather in a studio, socially distancing and making music. Both sessions had a different feeling, just because every group of musicians has their own unique chemistry. It’s a team thing and everyone has an impact on the dynamic. Besides the musical part, every gathering of musicians is a social experiment. That’s one of the beauties of it.

JB:  You have a number of guitars, what do you appreciate most about the archtop guitar you currently play the most? 

PB:  I don’t have a lot of guitars at all. I have been playing the same one since 1998. It was made by John Zeidler, a great luthier from Philadelphia. It’s an archtop with a floating humbucker. This instrument is truly exceptional, and I consider myself very lucky to have been able to play it and learn about music from it. The feeling, the response, the timbre, clarity, all of these things are there in this guitar and it’s only gotten better over the 26 years I’ve been playing it, as it has opened up and gotten deeper.

JB: You recently did the Girl Talk album with Sasha Dobson as well as occasionally working with the young Anais Reno.  What do you find refreshing about being a sideman with singers?

PB:  I really enjoy playing with good singers. I love songs and love to hear them sung and get that extra dimension of the lyric, the story of the song. This affects me playing that particular song forever after because you have a connection to it that is more complete. Sasha Dobson is someone I’ve known for over 20 years who has done a lot as a singer-songwriter of her own music, but she is a great jazz singer too. Anais Reno is a very new and great talent who I got to record with and like the Sasha Dobson recording, there was no piano, so I had the challenge of being the harmonic support which I really enjoy doing. 

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