This is a new collective of four very individual musicians who have come together to create a unique blend of sounds comprised of Will Bernard's Blues and New Orleans' Style Groove influences blended with Emer and Lackner’s free form compositions.

Bernard, Emer and Lackner have all developed their individual sound by leading their own bands for years. Bernard has just been nominated for a Grammy in the contemporary jazz category and Lackner has 5 albums out and has toured Europe six times with his own trio. Andrew Emer has toured and performed with Jazz legends including Billy Higgins, Lee Konitz & Donald Byrd.

Individually they have performed all over the USA, Germany, France, Greece, Japan, Turkey, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and collectively this unit is planning their first European tour in October 2008.

Will Bernard plays with drummer, Stanton Moore, on a regular basis as well as Dr. Lonnie Smith. His new album will feature John Medeski from Medeski, Martin & Wood. He is a Palmetto recording artist.

Benny and Andrew met and began their musical collaboration 13 years ago at Cal Arts in California where they were both studying with Charlie Haden. Over the years, they have remained the best of friends but never had a chance to truly collaborate together due to other professional musical obligations.

In the summer of 2007 they met Will Bernard while all were teaching a week long jazz camp for kids in California. This included Faculty concerts each night and near death river rafting during the day. As the week concluded it was apparent that there was something special among this mixture and that this group was more then just a group of cats thrown together only for one week. Once Benny and Andrew returned to New York and heard that Will was fixing to move to Brooklyn - the dye was cast and they made their first recording 'Day for Night' one month later.

Adding Mark Ferber was a natural choice since not only is Mark a fellow Californian but also someone that both Benny and Andrew have been playing with for over a decade. Mark brings the perfect amount of taste and sensibility to compliment the varying influences of this group. All four musicians have a dedication to this music - which brings us this first recording no doubt the first of many CD's from this group.

Will Bernard

An alumnus of the jazz studies program at Berkeley High School that included Peter Apfelbaum, Josh Redman, Charlie Hunter, Craig Handy and Steven Bernstein and Lenny Pickett, Bay Area guitarist/composer Will Bernard first began playing and recording on an international level through his membership in Peter Apfelbaum’s Hieroglyphics Ensemble, whose first recording was on Don Cherry’s “MultiKulti”  (A&M 1989). 

Since then he has been involved with a host of boundary stretching groups, ranging from jazz, hip hop and world music to experimental music, with many stops in between. He has performed and recorded with Jai Uttal and the Pagan Love Orchestra, Peter Apfelbaum’s various band incarnations, Beth Custer, The Coup, and Pothole to name a few. The most successful of these projects was the group T.J. Kirk (with Charlie Hunter) whose 2nd record for Warner Bros. “If Four Was One” was nominated for a Grammy in 1997. Shortly thereafter Will released his debut CD as a leader, “Medicine Hat”, in 1998 on Verve/Antilles.
Subsequently Will self produced two Albums “Will Bernard and Motherbug” (2001) and Will Bernard Trio “Directions to my House” (2005) both on his own label, Dreck to disk.
  

The Will Bernard band has performed at The Monterey, North Sea, SF Jazz, Bumbershoot, Be-Bop and Brew, Montreal, Vancouver and The High Sierra festivals, as well as clubs across the country and through Canada. They have opened for Herbie Hancock and the Head Hunters, Jimmy McGriff, The Funky Meters, John Scofield, Medeski, Martin and Wood, Ziggy Modeliste and the Charlie Hunter Quartet.

More recently Will has been seriously expanding his musical associates and has been working with a range of musicians that include Robert Walter, Stanton Moore, Dr Lonnie Smith, Idris Muhammad, Adam Deitch, Zigaboo Modeliste, and John Medeski. Between 2002 and 2005 he toured extensively in the US with Robert Walter’s 20th Congress. Sit-ins and all-star bands have included Trey Anastasio, Ruben Wilson, Johnny Vidacovitch, Melvin Seals, Living Daylights and Mike Clark’s Prescription Renewal. 

In 2006 Will recorded with Stanton Moore for his Telarc debut and toured the country with Stanton’s Trio, on their own and opening for Galactic During the same year Will and Sonoma County’s Groundation began a side project with Leroy Horsemouth Wallace (of reggae cult movie “Rockers” fame). Will continued his collaborations with  Fully Loaded (members of  RW20th Congress, Greyboy All-stars and John Scofield) www.fullyloadedfunk.com and MG5 (members of Galactic and Greyboy All-stars).

2007 brung the February release of “Party Hats”, Will’s debut release for Palmetto Records. Party hats was nominated for a GRAMMY in the contemporary jazz field.  The CD features Will Bernard’s compositions and performances by musicians who’ve been frequent collaborators over the years, notably Peter Apfelbaum, Dave Ellis and Josh Jones along with Wil blades, Keith McArthur, and Michael Bluestein.

As bandmate Stanton Moore recently said of Bernard (in the San Francisco Chronicle): "He's one of the greatest musicians I've come into contact with." And Robert Walter says: "He's probably the most versatile guitar player I've ever worked with. Anywhere we try to go, he can cover that area better than anyone."  

Andrew Emer

Andrew  Emer is  California native transplanted to New York City in 1998. Before noving to New York City, Andrew Studied Bass at Sonoma State U. and Cal Arts
under Charlie Haden. While on the West Coast. Andrew worked with Jazz greats;Billy Higgins, Buddy Collette Bruce Forman and Former Cal Tjader drummer, Vince Lateano. Since mov ing to New York he has worked with Lee Konitz, Donald Byrd, Michael Cain, Jason Moran, Jeff Ballard, Tony Sher, Kenny Wollesen, Chris Cheek, George Garzone, Frank Kimbrough, Carl Allen, Mike Clark, Arturo O'farell, Will Bernard, Josh Jones,
Benny Lackner, Adam Theis, John Popper (Blues Traveler), Slide Hampton, Barney Mcall, Donny Mclaslin, Eric Mcphearson, Allison Miller, George Schuller and also Stephen Perkins of Janes Addiction.

In the fall of 2007 Andrew helped to score a play for Labyrinth Theater Company with Co-artistic Directors :John Ortiz and Phillip Seymore Hoffman. The play, "A View From 151st street" written by Bob Glaudini premiered at the New York City Public Theater and a successful 38 show run. Andrew is busy freelancing and writing music for the next CD of this band on the BJU record label.

Benny Lackner

Born in Berlin, Benny Lackner, was raised on American folk songs and blues by his California native father.

Upon moving to America at 13, his jazz drummer uncle (Tom Lackner) introduced him to the world of jazz. Benny went on to study with pianist Brad Mehldau, to perform at the Monterey and the Montreux jazz festivals, and to play with artists such as the late Billy Higgins, Marc Ribot, Brad Shepik, the and Pheeroan akLaff and is now residing in NYC where is working with his internationally touring trio and as a sideman.

Benny Lackner has recently shared bills with such Downtown NYC artists as Elvis Costello, the Jazz Passengers, Sex Mob, Vijay Iyer, Ralph Alessi, Kenny Wollesen, Jonathon Haffner and many others.