A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH LARRY GOLDINGS


I was at a Michael Brecker show featuring Larry Goldings and the tenor often praised Goldings' compositions. Since I have grown to respect Goldings' compositional chops as well. I spoke with Goldings while he was on tour with James Taylor, about his recent Palmetto release, as always, unedited and in his own words.


FRED JUNG: Let's start from the beginning.

LARRY GOLDINGS: I started playing piano by ear just sort of pop kind of stuff. We had a piano in the house and when I was about eight or so, I sort of gravitated towards it and started picking up things from the radio, Billy Joel and things like that and whatever was playing, whatever I was into at that age. That led to, I guess, as my ear became a little bit more sophisticated, I got into things that were a little bit more challenging. I went to a music camp when I was twelve in Maine and got exposed to some other kinds of things. I was still just mainly playing by ear, but had developed it a little bit more by then and got exposed to some jazz fusion and things like that and then I really had my first jazz piano teacher there at that camp when I was twelve and he basically steered me towards some more traditional, acoustic kind of jazz and that was sort of the beginning. I think Oscar Peterson was probably the first piano player that really made an impression as well as a local New England guy named Dave McKenna, a great piano player. So those things led me to want to concentrate more on blues influenced jazz, but I was still involved with rock bands and was even writing fusiony, rocky, poppy kind of songs at that time, didn't make the full commitment to really, really explore the roots of jazz until I was in high school and I attended a summer jazz program at the Eastman School in Rochester. That's where I met Peter Bernstein, who has been a good friend and a regular co-leader of mine for years. That was really when, when I was about a junior in high school that I started to really go more into the roots of jazz and get more purist about it. That was still all piano and the organ didn't really come in until much later.


FJ: When did the transition start?

LARRY GOLDINGS: It's a totally different instrument. It's a totally different touch. I think for one thing, I was always attracted to blues influenced music, whether it was blues itself or jazz or Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, a lot of soul jazz or R&B that had the organ in it. I had always been exposed to that sound and I think subconsciously had always sort of imagined what it might be like to play the organ. One of the things that I think led me to it was the fact that one of my early influences, Dave McKenna, when he played piano, when he played solo piano, he usually approached it with a left hand bass, kind of walking bass approach. That was my model as far as solo piano goes and I tried to emulate that. I think there was definitely, I only realized this more recently, that there was a connection between that and going to the organ. Obviously, when you're playing without a bass player, you're supplying your own bass. I think that was something that led me to the organ and like I said before, just the fact that so many organ records were blues oriented. That got me into it and I think the thing that really hit me was a couple things. One not from the jazz side of things, but Billy Preston playing on an Aretha Franklin tune, I've said this many times before in interviews, but from "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (Aretha Live at the Fillmore West) and there was something really, really beautiful about that that really stuck with me what Billy Preston was playing behind Aretha. And the other thing was the Wes Montgomery/Jimmy Smith record, a Verve record. I don't remember what it was called, Dynamic Duo probably. Peter Bernstein probably turned me onto it when I went to that summer program. That sort of sparked an interest in trying the organ. The only problem was getting to one and shortly after I moved to New York, which was in '86, I stumbled upon a gig at a place called Augie's, which is now called Smoke where a bass player didn't show up and so I was called by Leon Parker, the drummer, to come and fill in for him and I brought up a synth and I walked bass on that. Out of that experience came a renewed interest in doing this bass thing so I got into find an organ sound and it was kind of cheesy and then I just a little by little found better organ substitutes to bring up to that gig. Eventually, it became a trio of myself, Peter, and Bill Stewart and we had regular gigs frequently, both at Augie's and at the Village Gate, which is now gone and developed a little bit of a local following. That's where Maceo Parker heard me and that's how I ended up playing with him and through his experience, I got a lot of exposure as an organ player as opposed to a piano player. That was how that all started.


FJ: You played with Sco as well.

LARRY GOLDINGS: And then of course with Scofield, I played mostly organ, but some piano with Sco. I started to get much more exposure as an organ player, just sort of by accident, just because my initial high level exposure was on organ and that's what led the guy from Maceo's record company to make a record on organ, which more so just pigeonholed me into the organ thing, which was fine. Sort of ironic, but that's how that all happened. My regular band is so great and I just love playing with those guys that we decided to keep it together, keep making records and it's the only really regular trio that I ever stuck with. I've never really had a regular piano group. So we've stuck with it and that's kind of how that happened.


FJ: But you still return to the piano.

LARRY GOLDINGS: Oh, yeah, I'm playing the piano again. I've always been playing it over the years. With John Scofield, I actually played thirty percent piano on that gig and on his records and stuff. As a sideman, I'm still called for both. Chris Potter sometimes, I play piano with and other people and for recording sessions, I get called to do both. Right now, I am working with James Taylor, the singer, and I'm playing a lot of piano with him, piano, organ and synth and stuff like that. I'm definitely keeping both alive. I just made a solo piano record sort of not for a label, although I am probably going to give it to Palmetto to at least listen to and I hope to put that out, which is mostly solo piano. I really want to keep it going because I've been asked what I love more and it is hard to say, but I certainly love both equally.


FJ: The trio has been together for some time.

LARRY GOLDINGS: Right. Well, the organ trio is with guitar and drums. At least the records that I knew, all the Jimmy Smith records with the exception of a few. Shirley Scott was one of the few organ players who played a lot with a bass player and a drummer, but to my knowledge, the instrumentation is what we've been doing. We have found our own unconventional approach to that in that we don't play a lot of so called shuffles and heavily blues influenced tunes. That wasn't a conscious decision. That was whatever I was coming from, from my general interest in a wide spectrum of jazz. I write a lot and so we play a lot of my tunes. We play some of Peter's tunes and Bill's tunes as well. I was enamored with the Bill Evans Trio and so in a way, there is something of that influence in there in the way that it is more of a democratic kind of sound where the organ doesn't necessarily always take the lead instrument all the time. In fact, if you were to take a survey of most of my records, it almost sounds like Peter's out front most of the time, with the melodies.


FJ: The anti-approach to conventional leadership.

LARRY GOLDINGS: That's just the way I like to hear it. I like Peter to play the melodies and I like to create a cushion for him and Bill gets a lot of space. I think everybody gets a lot of space in the trio where as the conventional organ trio is very organ centric. I like that. I like to listen to that, but for me, it is more about the band.


FJ: How much are you composing?

LARRY GOLDINGS: More than, certainly more than practicing and certainly more than I'd say eighty percent as opposed to just practicing the piano, unfortunately. I should probably strike a better balance there, but I'm always writing. I'm always writing. Sometimes it is just little tidbits, but I put on my mini-disc player and then I come back to it and eventually I finish more. If somebody is looking for some material, I sort of try to remember what I'm writing and they span a lot of different styles. I mean, sometimes it is jazz. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes it is trying to write very specifically, very specific kind of little piano pieces and things like that. It is whatever I'm feeling or if I do have a specific project to write for then that is good because that focuses me into one thing. But I am doing a lot of writing, Fred. If I am preparing for a record, I am obviously going to write with the trio in mind. So it always depends on whether I am preparing for something specific or if I am just going on my feeling.


FJ: Did you write the compositions on Sweet Science with the album in mind?

LARRY GOLDINGS: There was one that was actually from my very first record. That was the oldest composition and I figured that nobody would probably have the record. That was "Pegasus" and that was the only one that I had just lying around. And then the standard, "Spring is Here," is something we've been playing for a long time. A bunch of them were actually improvised in the studio and then sort of edited. On two or three tunes, there is quite a bit of computer editing involved to kind of create the tunes. There was some things that I looped. There was some things that I overdubbed. For instance, the tune, "Sweet Science," was totally improvised and my idea from the outset was to do some tracks like that, where we just went into the studio and started vamping and started with just no preconceived tune. Later, I went in with Matt Balitsaris from Palmetto, with his computer and we just found the spots that I wanted to vamp and revisit later as if to make it sound like it was a preconceived piece of music. A lot of it, that tune is a perfect example of that and there are some other ones. "Come in and Pray" was totally improvised and originally was about an eight minute performance and we just found bits of it and put it all together. Usually the tunes that are attributed to all of us are ones that started off as free tunes. "Asimov" was a tune that the changes for it were left over from some blowing changes that I had never really used from a tune from my last record, the title track of my last record, As One. That tune was just a head with no blowing changes. With Michael Brecker, when I was with him, we played that tune with some blowing changes, but then sort of put it away. Then I discovered that I liked the blowing changes and then I wrote a tune over the blowing changes and that became "Asimov." That was an example of one that was based on something that had already been sitting around. Then there is the Burt Bacharach tune which I like his music so we tried to do something with that. Bill, I had a tune that he was preparing for one of his records that I really loved, the "Chorale" piece. The blues, which is "Solid Jack" was also about half written when we got to the studio and I just kind of sung to Peter the rhythmic concept that I wanted him to play for the melody, but I didn't tell him to play a specific melody and I improvised the chords behind him. That was another one that was really semi-improvised. The blowing changes, I think I came up with at the session. I kind of decided that I didn't want to worry too much at the session because we had been playing for so many years and I didn't want to obsess like I usually do. We just sort of, about half of it was really loose. I ended up really liking that way of recording.


FJ: Will that be your recording motto?

LARRY GOLDINGS: I think sometimes, Fred. Other times, I definitely have a concept. I like to do a record, the music of somebody. But it was such a freer way to go and when you have people like those guys where we all trust each other and where we know that we can get to some good playing in that way because that all came out of what we've been doing live and we've been playing so much, for so many years that that kind of freeness has come naturally in a live situation where we will sort of go from one tune to another and it will become a free kind of thing. We've been doing that live and so I figured that if we can do it live, we can do it in the studio. But yeah, that will certainly be an element of the records. I'd like to do one that is completely free. But again, I like to take advantage of what is available in the studio now, such as Pro Tools and things like that. I think when used musically and tastefully, you can have a great outcome. I'm not so purest anymore that I am against anything like that. I think musical tasteful use of those things are great.


FJ: The organ uniquely gets an enthusiastic live audience. Any thoughts on a live record?

LARRY GOLDINGS: Yeah, actually. The three of us have been talking about it for years. That is a good idea. We have to find the right venue that has the right sound. It is certainly easier than ever now to bring in somebody with great quality portable gear and do that. We play very differently live and we really stretch, so that is a really good idea and something we should do in the next couple of years. Sometimes New York audiences can be jaded because they always hear good music, so we find a lot of venues where people are starved for music where we have great experiences, both in the States, out here in California, or in Europe. We had some really nice crowds of people who had never seen us before. We have an amazing reception out there.


FJ: Tour plans?

LARRY GOLDINGS: We're trying. I all of the sudden got busy with James Taylor, which was something that just sort of came up really quickly. He's got a lot of work and so I have to work around them, but we're doing a week at the Jazz Standard at the end of October. We usually do a week every year out here at the Jazz Bakery. The last really lengthy tour that we did was last fall, so it is just a question of all our schedules converging. It is hard to keep it together. The trouble is, when one of those guys isn't available, I tend to not even want to do it because it is never the same. There are a lot of great other players that I would play with, but it is a pretty special thing. So sometimes I will try and not do something if Peter can't do it or Bill can't do it. We'll find the right windows. It is a great band.


FJ: And the future?

LARRY GOLDINGS: There is another thing, the thing that we did to sort of prepare for this record was a totally free session at a studio at a friend's house here in LA that we all did the last time we played the Bakery. That was, I would like to put that out, actually. It is really nice. It is totally free and reminiscent of some of the things that are on the new record and I think it would really give people some insight into how we got to some of that stuff. It is just a really cool record. I want to put that out, the solo thing. I have got a little home studio now and I am experimenting with some other things that involve samples, synthesizers, and things like that. That is down the line. I am talking to Michael Brecker about doing something with him that is computer loop oriented as well. Maybe two records from now for him, we are going to do that.

Fred Jung is the Editor-In-Chief and is celebrated at a place called Miller time. Comments? Email Him