Verve/Antilles Recording Artist 
As a musician who finds inspiration in a delirious diversity of styles and genres, San Francisco Bay Area guitarist-composer Will Bernard is without parallel. His Antilles debut, Medicine Hat, shows an artist assimilating disparate sounds into a truly personal statement, one that funks and boils with the slam of a chilled Jimi Hendrix sitting in with The Meters.

The Bay Area has a long history of musical innovation, from Sly Stone's gritty soul to Tower of Power's "Oakland Stroke" to the more recent exaltations of Grammy Award nominated T.J. Kirk (in which Bernard played alongside another guitar phenom, Charlie Hunter). But only at the end of the 20th century, as the globe shrinks and cultures collide, could WillBernard's unique sound have emerged. A subtle guitarist whose playing hints at everything from experimental classical to rip-roaring funk, Bernard writes compositions that are studies in cross-cultural, era-spanning soul. What else would you expect from a musician whose musical loves range from Hendrix and The Beatles to Duke Ellington and Wes Montgomery; to A Tribe Called Quest, Indian virtuoso Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, and Varese? Medicine Hat is the answer.

"I'm a product of the late 20th century," says Bernard, who lives next door to Tower of Power's rehearsal hall in Berkeley, California. "I'm someone who has listened to everything I could get my hands on and absorbed all kinds of distinct types of music, while trying to focus it into something personal."

Growing up listening to The Beatles, Frank Zappa, The Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Thelonius Monk, Bernard was also motivated by his mother's classical piano and his father's folk guitar. Picking up his own guitar at the age of ten, Bernard was first inspired by Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsies album, which he still rates as "one of my top five guitar albums." While attending Berkeley High School, Bernard joined their jazz band, which boasts an alumni roster that includes such renowned jazz musicians as Joshua Redman, Benny Green, Charlie Hunter, Craig Handy, Peter Apfelbaum, Rodney Franklin, and Lenny Pickett. After high school, Bernard enrolled at San Francisco State University before earning his degree in composition at UC Berkeley.

Bernard cites his high school to college years as being particularly formative in his development. "During high school, I got into writing music and, for some reason, I thought I'd learn more about music by studying classical music rather than by studying jazz. I was getting more and more interested in Bartok and Charles Ives. Still, I was always listening to funk -- it was one of my staples. In the eighties, I stared an experimental jazz group called Good Dog and also played in a Klezmer group and an Iranian wedding ensemble for several years."

Bernard landed his first major gig as a member of Peter Apfelbaum's Hieroglyphics Ensemble, recording the albums Signs of Life, Luminous Charms, and Jodoji Brightness. During that same period, Bernard also recorded an album with Don Cherry and the Hieroglyphics Ensemble, aptly entitled Multi Kulti. Membership in Jai Uttal and the Pagan Love Orchestra followed, performing on three of their recordings (Monkey, Beggars and Saints, Shiva Station), all this leading up to Bernard's role as a member of the highly acclaimed band, T.J. Kirk, with whom he recorded two albums, T.J. Kirk and If Four Was One.

"Around 1993, all of the clubs jumped on the hip-hop/"acid-jazz" tip," Bernard says of the Bay Area scene. "Suddenly everyone was playing jazz in all the clubs. I have to say, I was loving that. At one time I was playing in 15 bands--not all at once, of course. We started Pothole (yet another Bernard venture) and T.J. Kirk then. That was the year I met Charlie Hunter and all the other musicians involved in that circle." For his debut, Bernard enlists several of the musicians whom he encountered on this bustling scene of noteworthy West Coast players.

Accompanying Bernard and his inventive guitar playing on Medicine Hat, are Scott Amendola on drums, Rob Burger on Hammond B-3 organ, and John Shifflett on acoustic bass. With special guests Beth Custer on bass clarinet, Peter Apfelbaum on percussion, and Jeff Cressman on trombone, Bernard surrounds himself with players who are more than his backup band. Medicine Hat is that rare recording where everyone solos but no one solos. It's not only about Bernard's torrid guitar, but about Burger's evocative organ comps, Amendola's acclaimed drumming, and the solid warmth of Shifflett's bass playing.

"It's a chemistry thing," says Bernard of his bandís important creative democracy. "I started the band when I met Rob (Burger). We hooked up instantly. The interplay we have is significant. Scott and I developed a symbiotic relationship through the years, playing with T.J. Kirk and working in previous incarnations of the present group. Shifflett and I played together in Peter Apfelbaum's Sextet."

Medicine Hat drops it's first dose with the tune "Close Shave," as Bernard's biting guitar slides into some good ol' New Orleans fatback with a tinge of avant flavoring. Keeping that southern style, "Boomtown" works a second line groove, exploding into a rollicking party of jumbling percussion and unusual bass clarinet. The title track is like a sultry sunset on the bayou, with Bernard's slurring bottleneck guitar recalling a Louisiana-via-New Delhi blues.

The hauntingly funky tune that follows is "Prankster," -- conjuring up a Meters-meets-Tim Burton vibe, with a truly cosmic guitar solo. The dissonant "Koko a Poko" seems to draw from Ellington with its unusual intervals and oddly memorable melody. The mystery of Medicine Hat deepens as the album unfolds.

"Trap Door Spider" couples gurgling wah-wah guitar with chattering horns and sassy drumming in a kind of demented funeral party march; "Nobody's Looking" recalls the sad beauty of an Astor Piazolla composition; "Tank Top" simmers and stomps; "Pollyanna" turns a harmless tango into a spooky walk with the spirits.

"One thing I like to do is make the basslines a little twisted, somehow point them in different angles and add unconventional notes that wouldnít normally be played in these sorts of grooves. I'm thinking harmonically, trying to come up with different harmonic implications. Like on "Prankster," the baseline has some notes that are unorthodox. It has dissonant notes that you may not necessarily hear, but it gives the music an unusual gravitational force."