Butler, Bernstein & the Hot 9

In conjunction with The Jazz Age: American Style in the 1920s, we liven up the joint with Butler, Bernstein & the Hot 9—a rip-roaring combo led by the remarkable pianist Henry Butler and the irrepressible trumpeter Steven Bernstein. With a nod to the Hot Five and Hot Seven bands of Louis Armstrong, the Hot 9 takes the early jazz of the 1920s as its starting point. Butler and Bernstein first worked together in 1998 in the Kansas City All Stars. They reunited in 2011 for a concert in New York City, and the material they performed—including the classic blues of Bessie Smith and the first-generation jazz of Jelly Roll Morton—resonated in a way neither had expected. “Their collaboration is both historically aware and fully prepared to cut loose,” remarked the New York Times. Their music is filled with modern flavors, agile arrangements, and a vitality that never allows the historical focus to limit itself to mere re-creation.

$43–$59, CMA members $38–$53.