Mar 14, 2008

Tin Hat a perfect fit

Goldberg finds his musical kin

By Paul Freeman / Entertainment Writer

Berkeley-based clarinetist Ben Goldberg has performed with such jazz luminaries as Cecil Taylor, Charlie Hunter and John Zorn's Masada quartet. He fronts the Ben Goldberg Quintet and also explores the Thelonious songbook with the aptly named trio Plays Monk.

But he saves his highest praise for his bandmates in Tin Hat. "Who you play with is absolutely crucial to making some satisfying music," Goldberg said. "I have to say that the people in Tin Hat are the finest musicians that I've had a chance to work with."

Though he was originally a guest musician with the group, a trio at the time, Goldberg didn't officially become a member until 2004. The current Tin Hat lineup of composer/musicians also features founders Mark Orton (guitar) and Carla Kihlstedt (violin and occasional vocals), as well as multi-instrumentalist Ara Anderson. "Everybody's personality becomes very important in how the music is shaped," Goldberg said.

"It's a goal not just of writing some pretty tunes, but thinking about orchestration, arrangements and keeping the music lively from a compositional standpoint. It's been a pleasure to work with people who are paying attention to those aspects."

Spontaneous inspiration is also encouraged. "Especially in a group like Tin Hat, the idea of composition and the idea of improvisation are not antithetical to each other," Goldberg said. "You've got to have solid structures to work with and you also have to have the kind of musicians who can push against those structures to keep the performance alive.

"People will play an improvised solo in most Tin Hat songs. But it's deeper than that. The improvisation also includes the way that a melody is phrased and the interaction between the musicians, how we respond to each other."

Their most recent album, the first with Goldberg on board, is titled "The Sad Machinery of Spring."

"The goal (was) to come up with some interesting music. You've got to have a sense of adventure to find out what's out there."

Goldberg has always been adventurous musically. He began with classical, then veered into jazz. Among his mentors was the late, great saxophonist Steve Lacy. Goldberg gravitated to Jewish music and played an important role in the "radical klezmer" movement.

Tin Hat's odyssey has revealed influences of everything from tango to swing, world folk to avant-garde.

"One really beautiful thing that impressed me about Tin Hat was ... they seemed to be historically beyond being concerned about genres," Goldberg said. "It wasn't too long ago that what musical world you thought you were in was often quite important to an artist's sense of identity.

"For Mark and Carla, it didn't seem to be so much of a conscious blending or mixing of genres as much as it was just kind of being past all that from the beginning. For me, that's part of the pleasure of being part of that band."

Goldberg relishes his participation in this group. "It's like it was perfectly designed (for having) a really great time. Getting into a certain kind of a groove and a certain harmonic situation - it seems like I was preparing my whole life to be sitting there playing those tunes with those guys."

Goldberg's perspective on music has evolved over the years. "The more I do it, the more humbled I am by the power of music. It starts to seem like something that's not controlled by an individual's effort or personality, even though it takes a huge amount of effort to reach the point where you can participate in music. For me, it's taken me my whole life to get the skills together.

"You try to keep reaching out and finding a connection to the source of music. Music starts to seem really big and we all start to seem - not small or insignificant - but like our job is, in a sense, to be servants of music. Music has something to say. Steve Lacy said, 'Music has a mind of its own.' I think that's a pretty good way to put it."

Goldberg appreciates the infinite nature of music. "You're never going to get to the bottom of it, get to the end of it. You're just going to do what you can and other people are going to keep doing it when you're gone.

"That idea used to seem frustrating. Now it seems like that's a source of energy. You can just keep going."