Henry Butler-Steven Bernstein and the Hot 9: Viper’s Drag
From Sex Mob to the Millennial Territory Orchestra to his latest project, the word “rollicking” was arguably coined to describe the music of trumpeter-bandleader Steven Bernstein. On Henry Butler-Steven Bernstein and the Hot 9’s Viper’s Drag, Bernstein and Butler, the latest in a New Orleans piano lineage that extends back to Jelly Roll Morton, rediscover the futurism and sheer unadulterated fun in early-twentieth-century jazz alongside a wonderful ensemble drawn mainly from the MTO. Butler approaches the music of Morton (“Buddy Bolden’s Blues”), Fats Waller (the title track) and Bessie Smith (“Gimmie a Pig Foot”) with a traditionalist’s respect, an experimentalist’s gamble, and a virtuoso’s knack for making the keyboard sound like an extension of his nervous system.