Aaron Goldberg: Sunnyside Records Press Release

Everyone has a home. The voyage from and return to home is one of literature’s most enduring themes. But for the jazz musician, home is a feeling as much as a place. As an improviser, he’s trained to make the most of wherever he may find himself. Spontaneity demands that he can never be lost. Furthermore the globalized nature of his art drawing melodies, harmonies and rhythms from all over the world ensures that with study he can fashion a home anywhere, in any genre. Yet even the jazz musician knows the all-too-human pleasure of a return to the ‘hood.

The all-encompassing artistry of pianist Aaron Goldberg is evidenced by his latest Sunnyside release Home, the follow-up to his critically-acclaimed 2006 recording Worlds on the same label. Joined in his trio by longstanding bandmates drummer Eric Harland and bassist Reuben Rogers, two of the finest rhythm section players of our time, and augmented by their masterful colleague Mark Turner on the tenor saxophone, Goldberg imbues the CD’s ten tracks with a startling variation of foreign and familiar motifs that dance, sing and swing in a universal musical statement that translates into high art.

“Almost by definition one returns Home,” Goldberg says. “Worlds was a voyage that set out to ground cross-cultural melodic material (songs) in our common trio language and improvisational group sound. It aimed to prove that jazz is always conceptual because it is syncretic and innovative because it is personal. The point was that we each inhabit simultaneously one world and many; even as we sing the anthems that bring meaning to our lives we use our passports to explore humanity in general and thus ourselves. Home is both a reflection on this journey and also a return. Musical souvenirs from the road become a permanent part of us, even as we remember what makes us proud of our own neighborhood. Jazz is omni-American even as it aspires to universality. Home is therefore a restatement of values and a celebration of a once-unimaginable sociopolitical triumph. It’s also a musical plea for idealism cum realism, the need to widen our family circle and learn to apply our most treasured home-grown principles on a global scale.”

The ten selections on this CD are all poetic journeys. Three feature Turner’s unmistakable snaky-but-sweet sound, the voice of his saxophone generation: first a labyrinthine performance of the great Cuban singer-songwriter Pablo Milanes’ humanist prayer “Cancion Por La Unidad Latinoamerica,” then Goldberg’s own “The Rules,” a burning rumination on jealousy and possession, and finally an original entitled “Aze’s Bluzes”, an inbound flight directly back to New York that circles the city before landing safely. The rest of the CD features Goldberg’s terrific triad in a particularly effusive mood. Their renditions of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s later classic “Luiza,” Thelonious Monk’s “I Mean You,” Johnny Mandel’s “A Time for Love,” and Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” are consistently interactive and inventive whether at blues-ballad tempo or light-speed, taking the once-familiar to new musical ports-of-call. Goldberg’s contrapuntal groove “Shed,” an odd-meter sport devised for his compatriot Joshua Redman, as well as the childhood winter scene evoked by “The Sound of Snow,” first written for a series of kid’s CD’s entitled “Baby Loves Jazz”, showcase his evolving mastery of both piano and pen. Finally Omer Avital’s bittersweet torch “Homeland” invites the question whether our attachment to home, whether biblical or adopted, always brings out the best in us. Proving that art and politics are two sides of the human, this rumination translated into sound equals pure feeling.

The first home of Aaron Goldberg’s artistry is Boston. He was born there on April 30, 1974, and started piano lessons at the age of seven. He turned on to jazz in high school, studying with Bob Sinicrope of Milton Academy and later with saxophone guru Jerry Bergonzi. After receiving awards from Berklee College of Music and DownBeat, at age 17 Aaron moved to New York to study at the New School, where he met many of the city’s rising stars and future collaborators including Omer Avital, Brad Mehldau, Avishai Cohen and Ali Jackson. He returned to Boston in 1992 and enrolled at Harvard College. While at Harvard, Aaron worked with a variety of artists from nearby Berklee and won the International Association of Jazz Educators' prestigious Clifford Brown/Stan Getz Fellowship award as well as first place in the NFAA Recognition and Talent Search. He was soon discovered by vocalist Betty Carter and was a founding member of her historic Jazz Ahead program. During college he juggled gigs with studies, commuting often from Boston to New York, and soon met his future bandmates Reuben Rogers and Eric Harland. Aaron graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1996, with a degree in History and Science and a concentration in Mind, Brain and Behavior. After graduation Aaron moved to Brooklyn. He quickly established himself as a stellar sideman, performing with a vast array of leaders including Al Foster, Nicholas Payton, Stefon Harris, Tom Harrell, Freddie Hubbard, Mark Turner, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Madeleine Peyroux, Guillermo Klein, Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra. In 1998 he joined the band of Joshua Redman, with whom he toured for 4 years and recorded two albums Beyond (Warner Bros., 2001) and Passage of Time (Warner Bros., 2002). In addition he made two albums with the cooperative band OAM Trio, Trilingual and Flow (Fresh Sound/New Talent 1999, 2002), and two more with OAM Trio + Mark Turner entitled Live in Sevilla (Lola, 2003) and Now and Here (Karonte, 2009).

Aaron’s first recording as a leader was Turning Point (J Curve, 1999), followed by Unfolding (J Curve, 2002), and Worlds (Sunnyside, 2006). In 2004 he produced and performed in Jazz for America's Future, an historic fundraising concert for John Kerry's presidential campaign, and followed it up four years later with Jazz for Obama, a much-heralded concert in 2008 named “Best Performance of the Year” by AllAboutJazz. His efforts inspired such iconic jazz voices as the late Michael Brecker, Christian McBride, Brad Mehldau, Dianne Reeves, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Savion Glover, Joe Lovano, Roy Haynes, Joshua Redman, Hank Jones and Roy Hargrove to all lend their artistry to the cause of political activism here at home.

With his latest album Aaron Goldberg has both maintained his globalist vision and returned to his roots, roots that branch out in a myriad of musical places and spaces. “Home is a particularly extroverted example of family dynamics, captured at the end of a return journey…,” Goldberg says. “Home is thus a state of body and mind, a place and a concept, a sound and an idea.”

For More Info:Bret Sjervenbret@sunnysiderecords.com