Ben Goldberg

Ben Goldberg
Born	(1959-08-08) August 8, 1959
Origin	Denver, Colorado, United States
Genres	Jazz, free jazz, klezmer
Occupation(s)	Musician, composer
Instruments	clarinet
Associated acts	Tin Hat
Website	bengoldberg.net

Ben Goldberg is an American clarinet player and composer.

Early life and education

He grew up in Denver, Colorado. Goldberg grew up playing clarinet, playing in school bands, and has an undergraduate music degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Master of Arts in composition from Mills College. He was a pupil of clarinetist Rosario Mazzeo, and studied with Steve Lacy and Joe Lovano. Interested in the intersection between jazz (the music) and clarinet (the instrument), Goldberg started exploring the rich clarinet traditions found in klezmer music.

Career

Band membership

After a stint with the Bay Area band The Klezmorim, he branched out and created his own band, the New Klezmer Trio, named after the New Tango Quintet, with Dan Seamans and Kenny Wollesen. This was the first of many ensembles that Goldberg would lead and/or participate in, primarily in and around the Bay Area. The New Klezmer Trio has produced three albums and the free improvisation on "Masks and Faces" was described as having "kicked open the door for radical experiments with Ashkenazi roots music."^[1] Goldberg's musicality is inspiring, to audiences and to his fellow musicians; "Sometimes the most influential musicians are the ones who don't call much attention to themselves. Take Berkeley clarinetist Ben Goldberg, who for the past two decades has quietly inspired some of the Bay Area's most creative musicians."^[1]

In addition to composing for and playing in the Ben Goldberg Quintet, he performs in the following groups:

Tin Hat
Plays Monk, a trio with Scott Amendola and Devin Hoff
Myra Melford's Be Bread
Nels Cline's New Monastery
Go Home with Charlie Hunter, Ron Miles and Scott Amendola – The New Yorker called Go Home "a searching ensemble that welcomes lyrical improvisation while embracing the groove"^[2]
Afterlife Music Radio, an electro-acoustic quartet

The eleven-piece Ben Goldberg's Brainchild performs Ben's on-the-spot compositions.

The network of artists with whom Goldberg performs also includes:

Writing career

Recently Goldberg has branched out into songwriting.^[3] His "Orphic Machine" project, largely commissioned by Chamber Music America, premiered at the Jewish Music Festival in March 2012 and was also performed in Los Angeles, California. The song-cycle is based on the writings of Allen Grossman and, for one critic, "the piece's thoughtful, sprawling compositions course through such a variety of styles and open-ended impulses that it would be tempting to dub this a new kind of world music." ^[4] Regarding songwriting and composing, in a 2010 profile piece in All About Jazz, Goldberg said, "I don't just want to give people something that they can appreciate or understand, or that makes them think, or something like that. I used to kind of feel that that's what I wanted to do, but that's not what I want anymore. I want to give people something that they can love."^[5]

Recognition

In 2011, Goldberg was named the #1 Rising Star Clarinetist by the Down Beat Critic's Poll.^[6]

Record label

Goldberg is also the founder of the music label BAG Production.^[7]

Commissions and grants

Below is a selection of grants and commissions that Goldberg has received:

1992 – Jazz Study Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts; studied with Joe Lovano
1994 – Jazz Performance Grant from National Endowment for the Arts; concerts focused on Thelonious Monk, Herbie Nichols, Steve Lacy, Bobby Bradford/John Carter and Andrew Hill
1996 – Jazz Performance Grant from National Endowment for the Arts; new works
2007 – Aaron Copland Fund for Music, new works for the Ben Goldberg Quintet
2007 – M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, a response to a painting by Marsden Hartley
2007 – Chamber Music America / French American Cultural Exchange
2007 – American Composers Forum
2009 – San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music; new works for the Ben Goldberg Quintet
2010 – Chamber Music America / New Jazz Works; large ensemble composition based on the writings of Allen Grossman
2010 – Alpert Awards in the Arts
2011 – Sundance Institute's Documentary Film Composers Lab

Discography

New Klezmer Trio – Masks and Faces (Tzadik, 1991)
The Relative Value of Things (33 1/4), with Kenny Wollesen (1993)
Junk Genius – Junk Genius (Knitting Factory Works) with John Schott, Trevor Dunn, and Kenny Wollesen (1995)
New Klezmer Trio – Melt Zonk Rewire (Tzadik, 1995)
Light at the Crossroads (Songlines) with Marty Ehrlich (1997)
What Comes Before (Tzadik), reflections on post-tonal harmonic structures with John Schott and Michael Sarin (1998)
Twelve Minor (Avant) (1998)
Ben Goldberg Trio – Here By Now (Music and Arts) with Trevor Dunn and Elliot Humberto Kavee (1998)
Junk Genius – Ghost of Electricity (Songlines) (1999)
New Klezmer Trio – Short for Something (Tzadik, 2000)
Almost Never (nuscope) with John Schott and Trevor Dunn (2000)
Ben Goldberg – Eight Phrases for Jefferson Rubin (Victo) (2004)
Ben Goldberg Quintet – The Door, the Hat, the Chair, the Fact (Cryptogramophone), a record of compositions dedicated to Steve Lacy (2006)
Nels Cline – New Monastery (Cryptogramophone) (2006)
Plays Monk (Long Song Records) with Scott Amendola and Devin Hoff (2007)
Tin Hat – The Sad Machinery of Spring (Rykodisc) (2007)
Ben Goldberg – Go Home (BAG Production) 2009
Ben Goldberg Trio – Speech Communication (Tzadik) with Greg Cohen and Kenny Wollesen (2009)
Clarinet Thing – Cry, Want (BC Records) (2009)
Tin Hat – Foreign Legion (BAG Production) 2010
Ben Goldberg Quartet - Baal: Book of Angels Volume 15 (Tzadik, 2010) - John Zorn's Masada Book 2
Myra Melford's Be Bread – The Whole Tree Gone (Firehouse 12) (2010)