Bernard-Emer-Lackner-Ferber

Bernard-Emer-Lackner-Ferber is a 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.

www.willbernard.com