Steven Bernstein has been prolific over the last year and this second instalment of the slide trumpeter's ''community music'' output, the good time music moniker in the album's title inspired by a Lou Reed comment and themed distinctly New Orleans, is released next week.
Catherine Russell provides a neatly restrained vocal on Percy Mayfield's 'River's Invitation' from 1953 that bubbles out as the momentum of the horn section grows (the turbulence injected partly thanks to notable baritone saxophone riffing from Erik Lawrence). Listen to the original much silkier Mayfield version and you can hear by contrast how Bernstein adds a lot more disruptiveness in the rhythmic fabric of the arrangement proving all over again how to be credible and populist at the same time. Bernstein has two further albums coming up in 2022 – firstly with his Hot 9 in May and later in the year again with the Territory Orchestra.
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