# Henry Butler, Steven Bernstein and the Hot 9 steamed  up the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Gartner Auditorium: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/10/21/henry-butler-steven-bernstein-and-the-hot-9-steamed-up-the-cleveland-museum-of-arts-gartner-auditorium-video/
- Published: 2017-10-21T17:08:32+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Henry Butler, Steven Bernstein and the Hot 9 steamed up the Cleveland Museum of
Art’s Gartner Auditorium.**

Largely based on Viper’s Drag, the captivating Impulse! album the group released
in 2014, the site-specific performance started slowly and a bit ragged with Joe “
King” Oliver’s “Sugar Foot Stomp.” But it secured its grip the third song in with“
Dixie Walker,” a wild tune by piano savant Butler featuring band co-leader Bernstein
on slide trumpet, a puckish clarinet solo by Doug Wieselman and supple, shifting
rhythms encompassing New Orleans second line and the Bo Diddley beat.

The Butler-Bernstein performance was a perfect complement to “The Jazz Age: American
Style in the 1920s,” a dazzling exhibition organized by the Cleveland Museum of 
Art and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York, that runs through Jan.
14. “The Jazz Age” focuses on the 1920s but bleeds well into the 1930s, celebrating
names that continue to define elite, edgy style: Cartier, architects Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright, and Cleveland designer Viktor Schreckengost,
whose cobalt blue punch bowl imbues ceramics with the very spirit of jazz.

The dynamism and expressiveness of the Butler-Bernstein-Hot 9 date (actually, the
band was a Hot 10) fit hand in glove with that of “The Jazz Age” for good reason.
Among the vintage tunes this sprawling aggregation transmogrified were Jelly Roll
Morton’s “Wolverine Blues,” Fats Waller’s “Viper’s Drag” and that loose opener, “
Sugar Foot Stomp.” And while the band shone on these chestnuts, it was more modern
material like Billy Preston’s “Will It Go Round in Circles” and the encore, Professor
Longhair’s “Big Chief,” that turned it into a mighty engine.

The energy began to build on a smoky “Viper’s Drag” when Bernstein got the crowd
to clap along, and during Butler’s sharp song, which featured the penetrating trombone
of Curtis Fowlkes and the rolling drums of Donald Edwards. There were other notable
solos along the way, including Matt Munisteri’s stinging guitar turn on “Wolverine
Blues” and Peter Apfelbaum’s tenor saxophone on the encore. But the spotlight largely
stayed on Butler; even though his back was to the crowd, his presence was magnetic,
his pianism elemental.

Bernstein, a natty New York trumpet wizard known for his work in bands such as Sexmob
and the Lounge Lizards, contemporized the vintage tunes, and not only via arrangements.
The man is a born entertainer. He joked about a time when “real kings” like King
Oliver ruled—and made such worthy loyalists as Louis Armstrong part of their administration.
More moderator than conductor, Bernstein led the band through its increasingly catchy
paces.

The witty Bernstein, a genial conductor and biting trumpet player, largely deferred
to Butler, a blind New Orleans pianist perpetuating that city’s tradition. Butler
was outrageous, spinning out impossibly rococo boogie lines and in the same tune
going limpid. An impassioned baritone, he also sang beautifully, evoking the sorrow
of Morton’s “Buddy Bolden’s Blues,” building the Preston tune into a majestic statement
of faith (much thanks to Apfelbaum’s soulful tenor saxophone) and powering “Big 
Chief” to its joyful conclusion.

Not only did Butler’s robust take on “Big Chief” effectively channel the spirit 
of the original, it united the group with the audience as the band wound through
the auditorium, a multi-headed Pied Piper with a largely southern accent.

![Картинки по запросу henry butler steven bernstein](https://i0.wp.com/www.northseajazz.
com/-/media/northseajazz/rotterdam/shows/2014/butlerbernsteinthehot9300dpicstephanieberger02.
jpg?w=640)

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