Steven Bernstein

Steven Bernstein is a trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He has amassed hundreds of credits as a sideman. Best known for his Grammy-nominated cover band Sex Mob and the avant-fusion trio Spanish Fly, he served as music director for the Lounge Lizards, led the Kansas City Band (from the Robert Altman film), and conducted the Academy Award-nominated score for the film Get Shorty. Between 1999 and 2008, he issued four critically acclaimed, musically thematic outings for Tzadik including Diaspora Soul. In 2004, he founded the Millennial Territory Orchestra. Their debut album, MTO, Vol. 1, was released in 2006, followed by We Are MTO in 2008. MTO Plays Sly appeared in 2011. Bernstein and the late New Orleans pianist Henry Butler founded an almost unclassifiable, all-star band called the Hot 9 and recorded Viper's Drag for Impulse! in 2014. MTO issued Tinctures in Time (Community Music, Vol. 1) in 2021.