Carnegie Hall

Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra (MTO) celebrates its 25th anniversary with a career retrospective this evening. Marking the legendary band’s first headlining appearance at Carnegie Hall, MTO’s performance spans the entirety of its history, focusing on Bernstein’s favorite arrangements from MTO’s six studio albums, as well as his work with Butler, Bernstein & The Hot 9. Throughout the performance, the nine-piece “little big band” will be joined by Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Catherine Russell, guitar icon Vernon Reid, and the inimitable pianist and organist John Medeski—each sprinkling their own magic dust on standout moments in MTO’s discography.

“Arranging is a rarified and misunderstood art form,” says Bernstein. “It requires equal parts imagination and mathematics, sitting at a desk for hours and putting notes down on paper, oftentimes to be played once and never heard again. Having the opportunity to revisit some of my favorite arrangements—a few that haven’t been played in years—with some of my favorite musical compatriots is a special treat. Of course, there will also be a world premiere—one of the many things I learned from producer Hal Willner is to never waste an opportunity to create something new and embrace the beautiful chaos.”

MTO was born when Bernstein was asked by Willner to serve as music director for the 1930s jazz “territory” band in Robert Altman’s film Kansas City to reinvent the joyous sounds and jaunty style of the regional dance bands of the era. The music proved so revelatory that Bernstein—settling upon the lineup of Charlie Burnham, Doug Wieselman, Peter Apfelbaum, Erik Lawrence, Curtis Fowlkes, Matt Munisteri, Ben Allison, and Ben Perowsky—created MTO as a vehicle to continue exploring these sounds, ultimately calling on the band for many of his most inspired and inventive arrangements and expanding its repertoire from 1920s and ’30s swing gems to irreverent, genre-crossing material by The Beatles, Charles Mingus, Sly Stone, and Prince. They took up residency at experimental music venue Tonic and later the Jazz Standard, keeping the outlaw spirit of the downtown jazz scene alive in the face of soul-crushing corporatization. MTO ultimately made its way to the stages of Bonnaroo and Newport Jazz Festival, among others.

Raised in Berkeley, California, Bernstein relocated to New York City in the late 1970s, building a reputation as a first-call arranger, tight-rope improviser on the slide trumpet, and one-of-a-kind jazz raconteur. He went on to collaborate with Lou Reed, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Allen Toussaint, Marianne Faithfull, Little Feat, Rufus Wainwright, Sam Rivers, Roswell Rudd, John Lurie & The Lounge Lizards, and Bill Frisell, as well as being the music director for 25 years of fantastical Hal Willner productions. Along with MTO, Bernstein fronts several of his own bands, most notably the riveting, musical subversives Sexmob. In 2004, he joined Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramble band, which won multiple Grammy Awards. Most recently, Bernstein has become an honorary third member of Hot Tuna and a key component of Laurie Anderson’s Let X=X tour.

Three-time Grammy-nominated vocalist Catherine Russell is a native New Yorker, born into musical royalty. Her parents—the late Luis Russell and Carline Ray—were legendary, pioneering musicians. A graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Russell has toured and recorded with David Bowie, Rosanne Cash, Cyndi Lauper, Steely Dan, and Wynton Marsalis, among others, appearing on more than 200 albums. Since her debut release in 2006, eight acclaimed and chart-topping albums have followed. Her sixth album, Harlem on My Mind, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album, as did her seventh, Alone Together, and My Ideal, a duo album with pianist Sean Mason. Russell has appeared on PBS, and NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross and Tiny Desk Concerts.

Guitarist Vernon Reid is best known as founder of the groundbreaking African American rock group Living Colour. To recognize Reid solely for his Grammy Award–winning artistry as a rock musician, however, would be to miss a rich and varied body of work that has extended into virtually every musical genre. Reid has played with artists who range in style from Mariah Carey to Public Enemy, Mick Jagger to Bill Frisell. He has undertaken a wide range of musical journeys, including the production of James Blood Ulmer’s Grammy-nominated blues album, Memphis Blood: The Sun Sessions at the legendary Sun Studio in Memphis, and recording and touring with Cream co-founder Jack Bruce. While many observers view Reid’s musical journey with awe, he takes it all in stride. He told The New York Times, “I was just a kid in Brooklyn, sitting on his bed with a guitar in my lap, and listening to Santana records or James Brown records or Mahavishnu records or Led Zeppelin records, and thinking, ‘Wow!’ And then, you know, I’m meeting Jimmy Page. It is not lost on me, the fantastic irony of it. Now, I basically want to just keep on going.”

Famed keyboardist John Medeski is not easily contained to a single project or genre; he is credited on more than 300 works to date, most notably as one-third of the groundbreaking trio Medeski Martin & Wood. Equally comfortable behind a Steinway grand piano, Hammond organ, or any number of vintage keyboards, Medeski is a highly sought-after improviser and bandleader whose projects range from work with MacArthur Fellow John Zorn, The Word with Robert Randolph and the North Mississippi Allstars, Phil Lesh, Don Was, John Scofield, Coheed and Cambria, Susana Baca, Sean Lennon, Marc Ribot, Irma Thomas, The Blind Boys of Alabama, and many more. Classically trained, Medeski grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where as a teenager he played with Jaco Pastorius before heading north to attend the New England Conservatory. He released his first solo piano record, A Different Time, on Sony’s Okeh Records in 2013. In 2017, he collaborated with Jack DeJohnette, John Scofield, and Larry Grenadier on the album Hudson; the following year, he released an album with his band Mad Skillet (Terrence Higgins, Kirk Joseph, and Will Bernard). More recently in 2023, he composed and performed the original score for the television series The Curse, created by Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie, starring Emma Stone.