Will Bernard

A Berkeley native transplanted to Brooklyn, Bernard is a fiery and virtuosic performer whose bone-deep, groove-heavy playing was a vital part of saxophonist Peter Apfelbaum’s landmark world-jazz Hieroglyphics Ensemble and the guitarist’s own massively funky quartet, Motherbug. On the heels of his 2021 Posi-Tone release Ancient Grains — a classic organ trio album with organist Sam Yahel and drummer Donald Edwards — Bernard issued 2022’s Pond Life on his own Dreck to Disk imprint. His 11th album as a leader, the session is an adventurous collection of compositions equally inspired by contemporary classical music, knotty post-bop, funk, and the avant-garde and based around an exploratory trio including bassist Chris Lightcap and drummer Ches Smith, with guest appearances by keyboardist John Medeski and saxophone great Tim Berne.