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Ben Goldberg: Go Home
by Dan McClenaghan
This disc rocks, which is not something normally said about sets led by a clarinetist. But it doesn't begin that way. The sound of Go Home, from clarinetist/composer Ben Goldberg, croons to life with a smooth and creamy licorice stick/cornet unison interlude on “TGO," with the dark wood-wielding leader joined by brass man Ron Miles for a duo introduction. Then, thirty seconds in, the crunch and slam rock element rears its head, pushed to the surface by 7-String guitar ace ...
Continue ReadingBen Goldberg's Bag: Tin Hat & Go Home
by Dan Bilawsky
Ben Goldberg's music has never followed a set course or formula and the forward-thinking clarinetist always sticks to his guns when making artistic decisions. This has often resulted in positive press for his innovative work and it appears to have propelled him to take control of his own destiny. BAG Production Records is Goldberg's new, self-created label and it serves as an outlet for him to present his recordings to the world at large. Goldberg's work with reed players John ...
Continue ReadingBen Goldberg: Go Home
by Sean Patrick Fitzell
A comfortable familiarity permeates Go Home, the latest project from veteran clarinetist Ben Goldberg and the first offering from his Bag Production Records. Culled from both studio and live cuts, these feel-good romps suggest the intimacy of a jam session. He enlists longtime collaborators Charlie Hunter on seven-string guitar, Ron Miles on trumpet and cornet and Scott Amendola on drums, and their easy rapport fosters the music's success. Trafficking in meaty mid- and slow-cooking tempos, the group ...
Continue ReadingBen Goldberg: Go Home
by John Kelman
Between the rather eclectic and enigmatic The Door, The Chair, The Hat, The Fact (Cryptogramophone, 2006) and Plays Monk (Long Song, 2007), his characteristically idiosyncratic and unorthodox trio take on the music of Thelonious Monk, clarinetist Ben Goldberg continues to expand his broad musical interests, heard in earlier groups including Tin Hat and New Klezmer Trio. Few American artists other than Don Byron and Perry Robinson have focused so exclusively on this small wooden reed instrument, and while Goldberg's left-of-center ...
Continue ReadingScott Amendola - Ben Goldberg - Devin Hoff: Plays Monk
by AAJ Italy Staff
Nel febbraio 2007 cadeva il 25° anniversario della scomparsa di Thelonius Monk. Tra i pochi tributi alla sua grandezza realizzati in quell'occasione, c’è Plays Monk, pubblicato proprio alla fine dell’anno scorso, anche se registrato nel novembre 2004. Certo, Monk è stato oggetto nel tempo di omaggi memorabili, oltre che della viscerale attenzione riservatagli da molti grandi, inoltre le sue composizioni costituiscono uno tra i repertori jazzistici più battuti e riproposti. Eppure la piccola dedica di questo trio californiano si fa ...
Continue ReadingBen Goldberg Quintet: The Door, The Hat, The Chair, The Fact
by AAJ Italy Staff
Clarinettista personale, ma soprattutto compositore raffinato (di lui ricordiamo il bel Eight Phrases for Jefferson Rubin, del 1998 per la Victo), Ben Goldberg presenta questo omaggio a Steve Lacy, di cui fu allievo, pensato al momento della notizia della malattia del grande sopranista e registrato alcuni giorni dopo la sua morte. La formazione con la quale Goldberg affronta la prova è un quintetto di musicisti navigati, sebbene non notissimi, senza pianoforte e - su di una tradizionale ritmica basso-batteria - ...
Continue ReadingBen Goldberg Quintet: The Door, The Hat, The Chair, The Fact
by Elliott Simon
This is music that produces seemingly random associations as snippets of form and formlessness lead you to free, or perhaps not so freely, associate. Personal experiences dovetail with these compositions, which lead through nodes of memory and mood: from poet Robert Creeley to Alan Ginsburg to swing, world and free, through Bechet, Bird and Trane and then, of course, to the late soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy. Poet Rosmarie Waldrop speaks of how we can examine by boring down or zooming ...
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