Live at Dizzy's Brandon Goldberg

• 1Unholy Water (Live)04:13
• 2Wives and Lovers (Live)04:01
• 3It Ain't Necessarily So (Live)05:40
• 4An Affair to Remember (Live)05:07
• 5Let's Fall in Love (Live)03:55
• 6I Concentrate on You (Live)05:41
• 7Circles (Live)07:38
• 8Lujon (Slow Hot Wind) (Live)03:55
• 9Compulsion (Live)05:23
• Total Runtime45:33

Info for Live at Dizzy's

Brandon Goldberg is a pianist whose prowess, rooted understanding of the jazz tradition, and depth of emotiveness has earned him rightful acclaim as a savant within the national jazz scene. Described by DownBeat as a pianist with “unassailable technique, advanced harmonic understanding, a deep sense of swing, and, most importantly, a clarity and plethora of ideas executed to near-perfection,” Goldberg has time and time again proven his ability to conquer any gauntlet thrown before him. As Leonard Weinrich of London Jazz News astutely said, Goldberg has made “an emphatic statement to indicate that artistic development has rendered his lack of years irrelevant.”

Following on the lauded praise of his previous album, In Good Time, the now 18-year-old has been on tour with his trio of longstanding collaborators Ben Wolfe (bass) and Aaron Kimmel (drums). As the tour came to its conclusion at none other than the iconic Dizzy’s Club, the trio deemed it the perfect opportunity to etch their live vivacity into a permanent record. The end result is Brandon Goldberg Trio Live at Dizzy’s, a monumental lightning strike of inspired arranging, potent collaboration, and utter mastery, releasing March 22 via Cellar Music Group.

For Goldberg, performing at Dizzy’s, let alone recording at it, represents a salient full-circle moment. Apart from being what Goldberg describes as “one of the best sounding – and prettiest – rooms in New York,” Dizzy’s holds a sentimental value to the bandleader. “The first time I heard music in New York was at Dizzy’s,” Goldberg says. That concert Goldberg watched now carries with it another element of poetic resolution. “My parents took me to see the Bill Charlap Trio [at that first performance],” Goldberg says. “And now, Bill Charlap and Renee Rosnes came to hear us on the first night of our run.”

Goldberg’s trio concept is grounded in the great piano trios of the 1950s and 1960s. Drawing on the influence of legends such as Ahmad Jamal, Red Garland, Oscar Peterson, and Sonny Clark, Goldberg’s arrangements and compositions seek to pay homage to his predecessors through both tasteful renditions and intentional curation. Live at Dizzy’s presents the trio’s modernized take on the music of these historic trios while still giving respect to the pianists and traditions of those by whom Goldberg was inspired.

Due to the album’s nature as a live recording, the song choice and track order is, in many ways, more particularly and carefully placed than a traditional studio album. Live at Dizzy’s opens with “Unholy Water,” an original composition from Goldberg’s oeuvre. Rather than beginning the writing process for this piece with a chord progression as many pianists do, Goldberg began sketching this piece simply knowing that he was writing it specifically for Wolfe and Kimmel, armed with only a series of syncopations and a fast-paced melody. When he brought the ideas in to rehearse with his trio, his collaborators’ artistry brought this piece, whose intentionally amorphous structure is grounded exclusively by the rhythm of the piece, to life in a way that intimately matched the vision Goldberg had sought to achieve.

“Circles” is another original composition, originally featured on Goldberg’s previous release In Good Time for a quartet setting. Reimagined for this tour, the composition has taken on a dramatically different trajectory, and stands as a testament to his trio’s versatile imagination. The album also features writing by Goldberg’s peers. Notable in this vein is Ben Wolfe’s arrangement of Cole Porter’s “I Concentrate On You”. Goldberg wanted this piece on the set for sentimental reasons, as his grandparents had previously exposed him to the piece as a child through the golden era recordings by Frank Sinatra. Now, Wolfe’s arrangement of this standard references the stylings of the Ahmad Jamal Trio and showcases Goldberg’s trio’s ability to listen and respond with the highest intricacy. The album concludes with the great Jimmy Heath piece, “Compulsion”. “Miles Davis’s Collectors Items is one of my favorite records ever, and I felt that this set of music needed something special to close with,” Goldberg says. “‘Compulsion’ encapsulates the excitement and rhythm that makes jazz music so unique.” This track features a standout drum solo by Aaron Kimmel, evoking the expressive personality of Philly Joe Jones while highlighting his own unique persona and virtuosity.

As with any trio recording, each musician is equally important, even while filling utterly different roles. The power and inspiration of Live at Dizzy’s is a testament not only to Goldberg’s leadership, but the interwoven brilliance of the ensemble’s three unified minds. Goldberg acknowledges the elevation that his peers bring to this recording, and to every performance. “I arrived at Dizzy’s hours before our sound check to warm up and practice prior to the shows,”Goldberg says, “and Ben Wolfe would already be there before me, warming up and practicing. I respect and appreciate his unyielding professionalism and dedication to the music.” Of Kimmel, Goldberg likewise has nothing but praise. “I admire Aaron Kimmel’s desire for perfection,” he says. “We played several of the songs that we selected for the album in all four sets of our Dizzy’s run, and during each break, Aaron and I would discuss what worked, what we could improve on, how to get a better vibe in the room, what tempos to change, what textures were best.” It is this unanimous and relentless commitment to the music and to each other that makes Goldberg’s trio soar above mere technical impressiveness.

Brandon Goldberg Trio Live at Dizzy’s is a prodigious work, wrapped in tradition and steered with refreshing contemporaneity. A testament to shared musical vision, this album showcases Goldberg’s musicianship in equal portion to Wolfe and Kimmel’s. Indeed, they stand together with a single, compound sound, that is not that of a band, but that of an overarching, homogenous voice.

Brandon Goldberg, piano
Ben Wolfe, bass
Aaron Kimmel, drums

Brandon Goldberg
has been playing piano and making music since he was three years old. Critics have praised his “unassailable technique, advanced harmonic understanding, a deep sense of swing and, most impressively, a clarity and plethora of ideas executed to near-perfection.” – Downbeat Magazine

Goldberg has performed at leading jazz festivals across the country including the Newport Jazz Festival, San Francisco (SFJazz), PDX Jazz, Litchfield, Twin Cities, and Caramoor. He has played in New York’s most prominent jazz clubs including Dizzy’s Club, Mezzrow, and Birdland Theater as well as The Side Door in Old Lyme, and the Keystone Korner in Baltimore.

Goldberg is a 2024 YoungArts Winner with Distinction, a semifinalist in the 2023 Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition and youngest recipient of the 2022 ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award.

Most recently, Goldberg appeared on Good Morning America and Live with Kelly and Mark accompanying Katharine McPhee performing songs from her new album with David Foster called Christmas Songs.

Goldberg will be celebrating the release of his third album, Brandon Goldberg Trio Live at Dizzy’s, at the Kravis Center on March 22, 2024. This album, recorded with Ben Wolfe on bass and Aaron Kimmel on drums, presents the trio’s modernized take on the music of the great piano trios of the 1950s and 1960s, while still giving respect to the pianists and traditions of those by whom Goldberg was inspired, including Ahmad Jamal, Red Garland, Oscar Peterson, and Sonny Clark

Goldberg has released two other albums as a leader. In Good Time, released in fall 2021 features the late, great drummer Ralph Peterson, Jr., with Stacy Dillard on saxophones, Josh Evans on trumpet and Luques Curtis on bass. In Good Time showcases five original compositions and five standards, garnering rave reviews from London Jazz News and four stars from Downbeat Magazine, All About Jazz, and Jazzwise.

His debut album, LET’S PLAY!, released in 2019, features Ben Wolfe on bass, Donald Edwards on drums and special guest Marcus Strickland on tenor saxophone. The album has three original compositions and six standards and reached top seven on the Jazz Week charts and also earned four stars from Downbeat Magazine. Both albums were recognized as Top Albums of the year in 2021 and 2019, respectively.

Goldberg has also written original music for television and his compositions were featured in the first season of Lawmen: Bass Reeves, episodes four and six.

In his hometown of Miami, Florida, Goldberg has been a featured performer at the South Beach Jazz Festival, Jazz Roots Series at the Adrienne Arsht Center, the Miami International Piano Festival, FAENA Summer Jazz Series, and the Miami Symphony Orchestra.

In 2018 and 2019, The Miami Symphony Orchestra commissioned Goldberg to write two original compositions for piano and orchestra, “Surroundings” and “Rhapsody in f minor”, which were both performed live and recorded by MISO and received high praise and accolades.

Goldberg has participated in the prestigious Vail Jazz Workshop, National Youth Symphony (NYO Jazz) and Next Generation Jazz Orchestra. He worked with great jazz leaders like John Clayton, Sean Jones and Gerald Clayton.

Goldberg was a featured performer at TEDxYouthMiami, TEDxBocaRaton and TEDxCoconutGrove conferences. He also works closely with the Jazz Foundation of America (JFA) and performed at their annual Gala – A Great Night in Harlem at the famous Apollo Theater where he presented McCoy Tyner with his Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

At a young age, Goldberg had poignant break-through moments on national television in Seasons 1 and 2 of NBC’s Little Big Shots, The Steve Harvey Show and the Harry Connick, Jr. Show.

This album contains no booklet.