The multitalented Jeff Goldblum returns to Honolulu this weekend, but don’t worry, there won’t be any dinosaurs on his trail.
The quirky actor and star of three “Jurassic Park” films will be at Blue Note Hawaii playing jazz piano with his combo, The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, for two nights.
Goldblum’s piano playing has been an open secret for decades, but it recently emerged into the limelight after he and his band released an album, “The Capitol Studios Sessions,” in November. The live album, which featured singing sensations Imelda May and Haley Reinhart, comedian Sarah Silverman and Grammy-winning trumpeter Till Bronner, along with Goldblum at his wise-cracking best, promptly went to No. 1 on the Billboard Jazz Charts, and stayed in the top 10 for eight weeks.
“One of the many impressive aspects of ‘The Capitol Studio Sessions’ is just how balanced Goldblum’s skills are as he deftly moves his audience from perky vocal standards to swinging instrumental numbers — each transition aided, of course, with some very charming stage banter,” said critic Matt Collar at the music website Allmusic.com.
Goldblum, now 66, started taking piano lessons as a youngster, at first without much dedication. After his teacher gave him tunes like “Alley Cat” and “Stairway to the Stars” — “with some interesting harmonies, chords, that were not in the exercises that I’d been doing,” he become more focused, he told the New York Times.
His interest in jazz grew after hearing his father’s Errol Garner albums, and by age 14, he was playing professionally in his hometown of Pittsburg, getting gigs in a way that seems positively Goldblumian for its audacity and nerve – cold-calling nightclub managers and telling them he knew they were “looking for someone” to perform on their piano.
“Most of them would say, ‘No, we don’t even have a piano here. I don’t know what you’re talking about,’” he told Rolling Stone Magazine, “But some would say, ‘Yeah, we have a piano. Where’d you hear that?’ I’d make up something and get, ‘Come on down and play it, let’s see what you do,’ and I got a couple of jobs that way.”
Goldblum went to New York at age 17 to pursue his dreams in acting, but he continued playing the piano, not as a career ambition but as something he loved to do. After he landed a role with fellow actor and musician Peter Weller, a trumpeter, in “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension,” they started playing music together and formed an impromptu band.
Goldblum then had a role in Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall.” His character had a single, classic line, “I’ve lost my mantra,” but Goldblum received some good musical advice from Allen, who is an accomplished clarinetist and was known to pop into New York clubs to play jazz. He told Goldblum to do the same, and since the 1990s, Goldblum and his band have had a standing gig to play Wednesdays at Rockwell Table & Stage, an L.A. nightclub.
They’ve also played jazz festivals around the world and fit in tours when Goldblum isn’t working on a film. He’s also known to sit down casually at a piano in a hotel lobby or train station and entertain bypassers with a song, a joke and a smile.
With mannerisms both edgy yet disarming, and a rapid-fire, yet casual style of line delivery, Goldblum has carved out a unique path in cinema, with roles as a chaos theory expert in the “Jurassic Park” films, a macho, alien-fighting computer geek in two “Independence Day” films and a manipulative grandmaster in “Thor: Ragnarok.”
Between acting gigs, and when possible, Goldblum begins his day with a session at the keyboard, and to this day, it obviously still tickles him just to play the instrument.
“I’m a late bloomer, and I feel like I’m getting better at things all the time,” he told Conan O’Brien recently. “I’m nothing if not disciplined, and I went through my piano workout today, and I say I did better than ever.”
His band performs classic standards – “The Capitol Sessions” features songs like Herbie Hancock’s rolling “Cantaloupe Island,” the Marvin Gaye composition, “Don’t Mess With Mister T” and the cutesy Al Jolson hit “Me And My Shadow.”
The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, named after a family friend in Pittsburg (Goldblum merely thought it was a funny-sounding name), consists of John Storie on guitar, James King on saxophone, Alex Frank on bass, Joe Bagg on organ and Kenny Elliott on drums. Vocalist Gina Saputo will be performing with them at Blue Note Hawaii.
ON STAGE
Jeff Goldblum & The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra
Where:
Blue Note Hawaii
When:
6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
Cost:
$65-$85
Info:
bluenotehawaii.com Opens in a new tab or 777-4890
