Ben Goldberg

Ben Goldberg – Plague Diary Selections, Vol. 1 (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:54:58 minutes | 591 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BAG Production Records

Like many musicians, when the coronavirus hit in March I lost all my work in a matter of days. I had a complicated schedule for March and April, filled with tours, festivals, and local concerts, and it all evaporated very fast. Along with losing all my paying work, I was left with the question, what about the work of art? Something tells me art will be fine, even though humans are in trouble at the moment. But right now art is precluded from its important work of gathering us together. So musicians are in a weird situation. In the initial shock my thought was, I don’t know what to do but I can record music at home. So on March 19 2020 I began recording a new song every day and posting them to this album. The philosophy is “use what you’ve got” (is there ever another option?) – for me that means clarinets, a synthesizer I can’t figure out, and rudimentary recording ability. Because it’s a diary I am trying to use the recording process as a sketchbook, and an opportunity to mess around. (“Don’t forget to mess around.” – Steve Lacy)

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Ben Goldberg – Ben Goldberg School, Vol. 2: Hard Science ()
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 54:14 minutes | 609 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BAG Production Records

Hard Science is the second record by Ben Goldberg School. (The first album is called Vol 1: The Humanities). It was recorded in July 2021, with a particular strategy: I didn’t teach the music to the group, or rehearse. Instead i sent around a few of the more complicated passages ahead of time, then in the studio I just started playing each song and let the musicians grab on as they saw fit. My inspiration was the thought that, if I put written music in front of a musician, I am relying on their reading ability. This way, on the other hand, I am relying on their humanity in the moment. Most of the songs on the record are first takes although you can hear that for a few of these tracks we went over the song more than once so people could get the hang of it.After this recording was made, I continued playing the material in solo concerts and with a trio of myself, Liberty Ellman, and Gerald Cleaver. I began calling the collection of tunes “Porch Concert Material.” That is why the titles of these songs are called PCM.
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Ben Goldberg – Everything Happens To Be. (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 57:49 minutes | 1,06 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © BAG Production Records

Ben Goldberg is a veteran clarinettist whose work explores the unique identity and richly-veined sonic of his instrument through time.

Drawing on classical forms from Baroque through Klezmer to more avant-chamber sounds of Jimmy Guiffre; from collective N’orleans era jazz when clarinet was king of the reeds; through to the anything-goes NYC scene, to which Goldberg contributed during the 1990s. One of his peers is Ellery Eskelin, who featured on Goldberg’s highly rated 2013 release Unfold Ordinary Mind and here his inimitable, understatedly woozy-toned tenor sax makes an effective foil to Goldberg’s robust-toned Eb, rather than Bb, clarinet
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