Modern, lively jazz accessible to jazz connoisseurs and novices alike with zesty Latin flavors.

11 MP3 Songs
JAZZ: Jazz Fusion, JAZZ: Latin Jazz



Details:
John Goldman began his professional career in his home town Portland, Oregon with some of the area's best musicians such as Tom Grant, David Friesen, and Jeff Lorber. After years of playing, composing and teaching on the west coast, John decided on the suggestion and encouragement of saxophone great Eddie Harris, to relocate in Chicago. Since moving to Chicago in 1988, John has added to his already eclectic influence from the West Coast. He has performed extensively with Brazilian musicians Paulino Garcia, Chicago Samba, and Luciano Antonio, as well as Latin Jazz artists Ruben Alvarez, Silvia Sossa, and Tito Carrillo. He has performed with the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra.
Over the past decade, Goldman has played many of Chicago's music venues, including the Chicago Jazz Festival, the Jazz Showcase, Orchestra Hall, Ravinia Festival, and Arie Crown Theater. He has played many music clubs around the city, such as the Green Mill, The Velvet Lounge, Joe's Bebop Cafe, Pete Miller's, Smoke Daddy, and many others. John's new quintet plays every Tuesday at Kitty Moon as well as other jazz venues around Chicago, and will be going back into the studio in August of 2006 to record his third CD.

John is respected for his talent as a composer. His debut CD release 'For all the people' (2001) is an all original project and featuring some of Chicago's finest musicians such as Bobby Broom and Ron Perrillo. John's new CD 'In Walked Pierre' (BluJazz 2005), was voted one of the top 20 jazz albums of 2005 by Chicago Public Radio WBEZ and is now available in stores nation wide.This album, "For All The People" by John Goldman is, surprisingly, an absolutely fantastic CD. Let me explain why I say "surprisingly". Normally, when I pick up a straight-ahead jazz CD for the first time, the first thing I do is take a look at the liner notes to get a feel for the songs, instrumentation, etc. There are three things that tend to be instant red flags for me: the use of any synthesizers, an album of all original tunes written solely by the band's leader and frequent personnel changes from song to song. This release contains all of these elements, yet in spite of that it is still an absolutely fantastic CD.
Call me a jazz purist if you will, but generally I believe that straight-ahead jazz is an acoustic medium - an art form meant to be created live, 'in the moment', without the use of overdubs and with a minimum use of electronics. That makes synthesizers a big no-no in my eyes. But the synthesizers used on this recording are so tastefully employed and produce such an organic sound that if I hadn't read it in the credits I would not have guessed there were any synths present.
CD CoverThen there's the second red flag: original tunes. More often than not, the force driving a band to write all it's own tunes is ego. Lots of great musicians mistakenly think that they are also great composers or that they need to avoid standards for some reason, and so one ends up with an album of great playing but mediocre tunes. That is not at all the case with this album. Goldman is a wonderful composer. Each tune is engaging, tugging at the ear with melodies that sound at once familiar yet fresh. It's a truly impressive collection.
That brings me to the final red flag: personnel. The best, tightest sounding bands are usually the ones that maintain the same members over an extended period of time. And the best albums are usually the ones that maintain the same basic lineup from one tune to the next, creating a sense of musical continuity. This album, again, goes against the odds and wins. Besides Goldman playing alto sax, soprano sax, flute and synthesizer, you have Ron Perrillo on piano and synthesizer, George Fludas and Kobie Watkins on drums, Bobby Broom, Luciano Antonio, Neal Alger and Wilber Jarmon on guitar, Dennis Carroll and Tim Fullerton on bass, Dede Sam Pio and Walter O'Neal on percussion and Kareen Frank and Jackie Allen on vocals. Yet Goldman has somehow managed to mesh all these players together to create an extremely uniform, evenly produced album.
In addition to having written all the songs, Goldman also arranged each of them, some to stunning effect. On the song "For All The People" he uses Kareen Frank's voice strictly as a background harmony instrument, which makes for a very unique, very beautiful sound. Vocals are only used on three of the eleven tracks on this album (once with Frank and twice with Jackie Allen), always as background harmony instruments. Every note played on every song is superb, with each musician showing great technical as well a great improvisational skills. I'm very much looking forward to Goldman's next release, and after listening to this one, I think you will, too.
Roman St. James - Indie Monkey