BEN GOLDBERG

Berkeley Arts

2133 University Ave, Berkeley, CA

November 4, 2012

7pm

 

This was a Goldberg show entitled ‘Come Back Elliot Smith” – all the music written for Mr. Smith or inspired by his music. I don’t know anyone in the band except for Ewell, a very good bassist I’ve seen in the past, and Wiley, who I’ve seen a couple of times as an alto sax player (which I like), and I’ve heard that he’s playing a lot of drums these days, but this was my 1st chance to hear him do so. It was a double bill thing, so I stuck around to hear Positive Knowledge just for the heck of it – but more on that later.

Berkeley Arts – was just there last night for the Tony Malaby gig (well, John Ettinger). Thought I’d go check this out too. Goldberg’s a, well, you know, a clarinet player, which is nowhere close to one of my favorite instruments (too clean and all), but that said, he is an excellent player and can sound great esp. when he surrounds himself with edgy players. The band had a great sound to it, rich, moody music that had a nice combo of arrangement and imrpov to it. Cressman knocked out a couple of excellent trombone solos – earnest and searching and full of effort, he impressed me taking a long, bluesy and Dixieland to edgy and out solo on The 2nd Interlude. Nice set of music and playing. Goldberg even read a poem in the gap between songs – a funny and good poem from What Narcissism Means To Me.

 

BEN GOLDBERG – clarinet                                    KASEY KNUDSEN – alto sax

JEFF CRESSMAN – trombone                              ROB REICH – accordion, piano

DAVID EWELL – bass                                             HOWARD WILEY – drums