Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra Makes CD Debut

By I Jul. 6, 2006

Trumpeter Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra will release its first disc, MTO Volume 1 (Sunnyside) on Aug. 1.

Bernstein became intrigued with the sound of 1920s territory bands while he was working on the score to the film Kansas City .

“I was wondering what would happen if you played this music live again,” Bernstein said. “Because any version of this music that we have is like a three-minute bad recording. We know what it looks like because there’s all these great pictures of guys in tuxedos holding their instruments. But it’s almost like there’s more pictures of the music than there are recorded documents of the music. I wanted to bring this music back to life.”

Along with Bernstein, the band features guitarist Matt Munisteri, violinist Charlie Burnham, trombonist Clark Cayton, clarinetist/tenor saxophonist Doug Wieselman, saxophonists Peter Apfelbaum and Eric Lawrence, bassist Ben Allison and drummer Ben Perowsky.