Everything Happens To Be. Ben Goldberg

• 1 What About 05:41
• 2 21 06:14
• 3 Fred Hampton 04:48
• 4 Everything Happens To Be. 07:04
• 5 Cold Weather 06:23
• 6 Chorale Type 09:53
• 7 Tomas Plays the Drums 05:51
• 8 Long Last Moment 05:10
• 9 To-Ron-To 05:32
• 10 Abide With Me 01:10
• Total Runtime 57:46

Info for Everything Happens To Be.

For his latest record, Everything Happens to Be., Bay-Area stalwart and clarinet innovator Ben Goldberg convened a group of what he refers to as “distinct and eccentric musical personalities.” His formidable ensemble is composed of some of New York’s most exciting musicians – guitarist Mary Halvorson, tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin, bassist Michael Formanek, and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. On formulating the band, Goldberg remarks: “As a composer, I write not for instruments but for specific people. When I give someone a task, I need to know that they will carry it out specifically according to how they, as an individual, hear and imagine it. And it helps if they are stubborn, so when you boss them around they both do and do not follow your instructions: that way, you can count on everyone to chart their own course and meet you at the end. So I need to be selective about who I invite to the party. And this record, I should say, is some party.”

In the pre-Covid reality, Goldberg had been spending an increasing amount of time in New York, performing and working with a wide swath of the city’s fertile improvising community. He forged a special bond with Halvorson and Fujiwara in their improvised trio The Out Louds wherein Goldberg says he “got to know their contours, and where they might like to lunge.” These improvisations served to further Goldberg’s desire to compose music for them which would both harness these proclivities and also suggest new pathways — to shine a light on different corners of their burgeoning language.

Goldberg’s relationship with Eskelin began when the clarinetist wrote the saxophonist a letter in 1993. Goldberg’s love of Eskelin’s distinct and rich approach persists to this day, and Goldberg admiringly notes that “Ellery’s sound is the ragged heart of the modern world.” Eskelin played on Goldberg’s Unfold Ordinary Mind in 2013, but their reunion on this new album is special. Their shared melodic sensitivity and the depths of lyricism find perfect simpatico with one another.

Goldberg began playing with bassist Formanek in the last decade in many groups, especially prizing their work in the duo context. Goldberg says of Formanek that “Mike is one of our most accomplished, deeply thoughtful, and thoroughly swinging musicians. I learn something every time I play with him.” Formanek’s long-standing relationship with Halvorson and Fujiwara – in the acclaimed groups Thumb Screw, Halvorson’s Code-Girl, in addition to Formanek’s Ensemble Kollosus – also bears heavily on the intimacy and familiarity conjured throughout Everything Happens to Be.

Mary Halvorson, electric guitar
Ellery Eskelin, tenor saxophone
Michael Formanek, bass
Tomas Fujiwara, drums
Ben Goldberg, clarinets

Ben Goldberg
Clarinetist and composer Ben Goldberg grew up in Denver, Colorado. He was a pupil of the eminent clarinetist Rosario Mazzeo and studied with Steve Lacy and Joe Lovano. Since 1992, when his group New Klezmer Trio “kicked open the door for radical experiments with Ashkenazi roots music” (SF Chronicle), Ben has shaped a career through curiosity and experimentation across many genres and styles. The New York Times has noted that Ben’s music “conveys a feeling of joyous research into the basics of polyphony and collective improvising, the constant usefulness of musicians intuitively coming together and pulling apart.” He has twice been named Rising Star Clarinetist by Downbeat Magazine.

Ben has released over thirty records of his own compositions. His groups include: Invisible Guy; Tin Hat; Orphic Machine; Unfold Ordinary Mind; The Cool Philosophy of Ben Goldberg; DIALOGUE, a duo with pianist / composer Myra Melford; the Ben Goldberg Trio with Greg Cohen and Kenny Wollesen; Ben Goldberg School; and Ben Goldberg’s Brainchild, an eleven piece ensemble performing Ben’s on-the-spot compositions. Ben plays in Allison Miller’s Boom Tic Boom and is on the Music faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. He also runs BAG Production Records.

This album contains no booklet.