Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra Plays Sly

Before his death in 2025, Sly Stone enjoyed an overdue renaissance, his importance in fusing genres and crossing racial lines in American music finally captured in a stellar autobiography and a subsequent documentary by Questlove. More than a dozen years earlier, the Millennial Territory Orchestra—a big band that moves with the flexibility of a smaller ensemble, founded and guided by legendary New York trumpeter Steven Bernstein—became early participants in that revival with MTO Plays Sly, a jubilant and surprising reinterpretation of Sly & the Family Stone standards like “Family Affair,” “Time,” and “Everyday People.” Stone’s music remains so powerful because of the way it fused genres, bringing rock, funk, and jazz to bear in the same incandescent songs; the MTO split those songs back open, emphasizing the layers embedded in the originals.

Take, for instance, “Family Affair,” where Anohni and the surrounding band dug into the tune’s undercurrents of hope and sadness, turning it into a shuffle for a warped chamber ensemble. On a stunning rendition of “Everyday People,” Shilpa Ray anchored a radical transformation that suggested U2 being backed by New Orleans horns, turning the song’s message of radical inclusivity into an absolute anthem. Bernie Worrell articulated Stone’s avant-garde edge, while Vernon Reid offered a reminder of how powerful Stone’s transgressive appeal remains. The Millennial Territory Orchestra has interpreted the works of so many acts in its quarter-century, from The Beatles and Mingus to Prince and Stevie Wonder; they return to Sly Stone in a fitting tribute to an American icon.