Ben Goldberg - Practitioner (2018)

Ben Goldberg Says:
“In 1985 I took a lesson from Steve Lacy. I was in Paris a lot and would go to the Sunset to hear Steve and politely beg for a lesson. Finally he relented, saying, ‘I have a soft spot for clarinetists.’ We spent the afternoon at his place on Rue du Temple and Steve prescribed some exercises for investigating the basic elements of music. At the end of our meeting he gave me a copy of a new record of his, called Hocus Pocus.”

The Material:
Hocus Pocus (Book H of 'Practitioners') is a collection of six etudes for soprano saxophone composed by Steve Lacy. Mr. Lacy writes: "Deliberately made so as to be hard to play, they also contain many of the characteristic ‘licks’, which comprise the language that I use, in the the different kinds of improvisational musics that I perform in. Each piece is also a portrait of, and an homage to, a distinguished practitioner of a particular art.”

The Record:
As Michael and Ben studied and recorded the compositions over a period of three years, they began to envision a kind of dreamlike multidimensional sonic collage, which they realized in collaboration with engineers Eli Crews and Mark Allen-Piccolo.

Since Steve was a baseball fan, the cd includes a pack of “baseball cards,” each with a portrait by Molly Barker (mollybarkerart.com) and an original poem. There are cards for the artists to whom Lacy dedicated his pieces, along with the people who made the record happen, and of course Steve himself. The poems are by Dean Young, J. Kathleen White, Paul Muldoon, Heather de Guzman Gordon, Clark Coolidge, Molly Barker, SNEAL, Babs Gonzalez, Jake Marmer, and Jesse Rimler.

Michael Coleman is a pianist, improviser and composer. He graduated from Oberlin College where he studied history and jazz piano. After graduation, Michael headed out to Oakland, CA where he began his career as a composer and sideman, working with Bay Area greats such as Scott Amendola, Marcus Shelby, and countless other improvising musicians and songwriters.

Michael is the composer and bandleader of the groups Beep!, Arts & Sciences and CavityFang. In his songwriting project Michael Rocketship, Michael plays all of the instruments and utilizes his home studio as a compositional tool, using experimental recording techniques to create unique textures and sounds. These are then pieced together to create a jigsaw puzzle of melodies and harmonies that are at once mysterious and familiar. Apart from performing and touring tirelessly with his own bands, Michael has toured the world with Chris Cohen, tUnE-yArDs, Sean Hayes, Miles Kurosky and Jug Free America.

Clarinetist and composer Ben Goldberg was a pupil of the eminent clarinetist Rosario Mazzeo and studied with Steve Lacy and Joe Lovano. Since 1992, when his group New Klezmer Trio "kicked open the door for radical experiments with Ashkenazi roots music" (SF Chronicle), Ben has shaped a career through curiosity and experimentation across genres and styles. In 2012 he premiered Orphic Machine, a ten movement song-cycle based on the poetical writings of Allen Grossman. The New York Times has noted that Ben’s music “conveys a feeling of joyous research into the basics of polyphony and collective improvising, the constant usefulness of musicians intuitively coming together and pulling apart.” The Downbeat Critics’ Poll named him the #1 Rising Star Clarinetist in both 2011 and 2013.

Ben is part of The Out Louds; Unfold Ordinary Mind; Go Home; Ben Goldberg School; and Ben Goldberg Trio with Greg Cohen and Kenny Wollesen. He is a member of the avant-chamber jazz ensemble Tin Hat, Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom, and performs in a duo with pianist Myra Melford called DIALOGUE. He currently teaches Jazz Theory and Improvisation in the Music Department at the University of California, Berkeley.

With drummer Hamir Atwal, Michael and Ben have a trio called Invisible Guy. Their first record, “Knuckle Sandwich,” is available on BAG Production Records.