I intend to experiment more and more in the studio to create something that is original, sonically satisfying, soulful, but not necessarily jazz.
-Larry Goldings
In April 2006, a bizarre MySpage page appeared hawking the musical philosophy and wares of an Austrian pianist named Hans Groiner. Hailing from the city of Branau am Inn (“also the birthplace of Hitler, but please don't hold that against me"), the classically trained Groiner accounted his introduction to the world of jazz: "One day, around 1978, I heard a very interesting piece of music that turned out to be a jazz pianist named Thelonious Monk. It pickled my interest because it was very different from anything I had ever heard.”
Then it all went horribly wrong. “Although his music fascinated me, I had very mixed feelings,” Groiner went on to explain. “On the one hand, Mr. Monk had obvious talents, but on the other hand, his piano playing was very messy, and his songs had many funny notes and rhythms. Over the many years that I have been studying his music, I have grown to the conclusion that his songs would be much better, and much more popular, if many of the dissonances, or "wrong notes," were removed.” On his new CD, entitled Hans Groiner Plays Monk, the pianist claims he has done just that with such Monk classics as “Well, You Needn’t”, “I Mean You” and “Think of One.” “I think music fans from all over will agree that this new interpretation brings Monk's music to a much prettier, much more relaxing place.”
“Hans Gronier” expounds on the music of Thelonius Monk
The man expounding this gloriously deluded and naively heretical nonsense was actually the esteemed organist Larry Goldings in a ludicrous silver wig and faux Teutonic accent—essentially a bit of Andy Kaufmanish sleight-of-hoax in a genre not generally known for a sense of humor about itself. But then again, to be a master at the complexities of the Hammond B3 organ, one must perhaps be inured with a sense of whimsy and irony and a bit of cheek.
Flashback 18 years, Summer 1988: a small pianoless club on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “By a fluke percussionist Leon Parker called me to play with him up at Augie's (now Smoke),” Goldings recalled to All About Jazz’s Chris Hovan. “His bass player had cancelled and Leon wanted me to walk bass lines. I found a slightly cruddy B3 sound on my DX7, and that was the beginning of a still ongoing career of schlepping crap from gig to gig. Thanks, Leon,”
The 20-year-old Boston native had been a musical prodigy since learning to play the piano by ear at age 9 and studying classical piano until age 12. By the time he was a teen, he had attended the prestigious Eastman School of Music and had been tutored by the likes of Keith Jarrett and Ran Blake. But by his early teens, he was playing parties with his friends and discovering an affinity for playing a piano with his right hand while laying down what's known as a "walking" bass line on a Korg synthesizer in his right.
So why did this acoustic piano prodigy -- rigorously schooled in Beethoven, Brahms and Gabriel Fauré -- wind up gravitating towards a much-misunderstood electric instrument that (like the Fender Rhodes electric piano) that resided for years in the critical wilderness? “As a kid when I was first getting into jazz, I tended to play baselines on the piano. Somehow I gravitated toward that. Probably because I had a love for a piano player by the name of David McKenna from the New England area,” says Goldings said in a 2006 interview. “His approach was always with a walking baseline. That’s how I approached it. I think there was a connection between that and actually wanting to walk baseline on the organ. I was pretty good at it. It had pretty good independence in that way. I like the control factor or something.”
By the time he hit Augie's in New York, Goldings was a member of the first graduating class of Arnie Lawrence's New School along with guitarist Peter Bernstein. Bernstein introduced Goldings to drummer Bill Stewart and the three kicked off their 20-year collaboration which, as Stewart takes pains to underline in interviews, is "the longest running band I've played with."
Theirs is a truly egalitarian union: although they released two CDs as 'the Larry Goldings Trio' -- 2001's As One and 2002's Sweet Science -- they have shared billings as leader.
Larry Goldings, Bill Stewart & Peter Bernstein live, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”
And it seems as if these three musicans' careers would have been inextricably linked even if they didn't have their own thing going: in addition to attending Eastman, both Goldings and Bernstein were mentored at the New School by guitarist Jim Hall; both Stewart and Goldings toured behind James Brown sax legend Maceo Parker and guitarists Pat Metheny and John Scofield (Trio Beyond (ECM), earned Goldings, Scofield, and Jack DeJohnette a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Album in 2007). This might explain why their acutal live shows, despite being rare rare in their occurence, offer, in the words of Amazon's Chip Stern, “a trinity of improvisers that operate with the free-flowing give and take, structured architecture, shifting tempo, and varied dynamics of a good basketball team.”
Larry Goldings backs Maceo Parker at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (1992)
Song with Orange's Kellen Yamanaka osummed up the LGT's highly developed sense of the electric instant: “When I caught [them] last year in L.A., the clutch to Stewart's hi-hat cymbal broke halfway through the first set. Undeterred, he and the band pressed on through the next set and a half, and the playing was as thrilling as ever (he even found some new uses for one of the hi-hat cymbals). Necessity might be the mother of invention, but Stewart's witty approach is always apparent.”
Music? "Witty"?! What would Hans Groiner think?
Larry’s List of Overlooked/Underrated Organ Records.
“Larry Goldings: Versatility of Keyboards…and Music” by R.J. DeLuke, All About Jazz (January 2006)
“The Organ Grinder's Swing: A Chat With the Multifaceted Larry Goldings” by Chris Hovan, All About Jazz (March 2001)
Go here for Eric Fine's April 2009 JazzTimes profile of guitarist Peter Bernstein.
Go here for Mike Brannon's May 2002 AAJ interview with drummer Bill Stewart.
Larry Goldings, Pat Bergeson & Marcus Finnie perform “You Don’t Know Me” as the Nashville Jazz Workshop (1/26/07)
Larry Goldings, John Scofield, Dennis Irwin & Bill Stewart perform “Golden Daze,” Burghausen, Germany (Spring 1994)
Larry Goldings backs James Taylor on ode to Pink’s Chili Dogs
James Taylor with Larry Goldings, “Sweet Baby James” live on Later…with Jools Holland (4/03/08)
MARK YOUR CALENDAR:
The Larry Goldings Trio will play the Angel City Jazz Festival at 8pm on Monday, Sept. 7, 2009. What they’ll be playing is anyone’s guess. Wouldn’t you rather be surprised?
