Jon Gold:  AN OVERVIEW

The Big City

...or the little city or a vineyard. I feel at home and simultaneously a complete stranger anywhere on the planet -- and so often I depend on the kindness of strangers to be able to do the things I do....  I make music but also derive enormous pleasure from teaching wonderfully diverse people about thermodynamics and quantum mechanics and Numberwang at a small college in Northeastern PA (about an hour from NYC).  My students are formidable and teach  me so much. I also do research in cardiology with physician colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman Center for Advanced Research in Medicine  -- specifically we are studying the use of cardiac proteins for the diagnosis of rare cardiac auto-immune diseases. If this works out, it could possibly save some lives.  Hi ho!....Oh and I like wine, a lot....

On the Importance of Remaining Inchoate

Music one might ask? So what's up with that? I was lucky. When I was in high school in Palo Alto, CA, our music teacher (Jim Robinson) used to take us to San Jose State to attend improv classes with the great, late Professor and trumpeter Dwight Cannon. He had us play "jazz" but one was allowed to only use non-traditional instruments that were lying around: music stands, instrument cases, shoes etc. He took out of the equation the whole thing about "chops" and music theory and forced you to just make "music".
Years later I experienced the same joy during my many visits to Bairro Jabour in Rio de Janeiro to visit/hang/participate in the rehearsals of Hermeto Pascoal and Grupo. Same concept. At Hermeto's house everything is music and everyone is a musician ("Só não toca quem não quer" (translated: Only those who don't play are those who don't want to) is the name of one his CD's).

Sometimes, without knowing why, I stop playing music. I can get hung up the wrong things and lose the joy. Then it is time to just "be" at the piano again. Beginner's mind....
I started out playing classical piano at age 12 or so with the amazing Francisco de Hoyos (a student of Bartok) and he at my first lesson asked me if I found the clusters of sound he made with his closed fist on the keys to be beautiful. I was sold immediately. At the same time jazz came to me: first through Mose Allison, then Oscar Peterson and then Coltrane/McCoy Tyner. Quickly I became a disciple of McCoy and that influence is my foundation to this day. I think his overall influence on jazz piano cannot be overstated and is sometimes now overlooked. My aforementioned music teacher had arranged amazing experiences for us, He arranged for me to tape a program for the local public TV station with Dizzy Gillespie. We did master class/concerts with Woody Shaw and Joe Henderson -- after which I began to study with Joe. I never met a kinder man in the jazz industry than Joe who unfortunately had some bad "habits" that lead to his demise.  He was a true mentor.
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JG and Carlos Malta
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Carlos Malta and JG recording in Rio
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Fake! (except the guitar and hair! -- the Blues period)
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Recording with Mauricio Zottarelli and Anat Cohen
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Recording with Mauricio Zottarelli and Harvie S
Brazilian music fever came upon me with a vengeance after hearing Wayne Shorter's "Native Dancer." I became involved with fellow "Brasil-o-philes" while at UC Santa Cruz and we traded horrible-sounding third and fourth generation cassette copies of Ivan Lins and Milton etc. We formed a band with a singer who had arrived from Rio and the fever kept growing. I started learning Portuguese and when I finished my PhD I decided to spend a year traveling Brazil to learn the music first-hand and avoid getting a "real" job. A large private university (PUC-Rio) offered me a visiting professor position and then a tenured position and a one year sojourn turned into many...I was fortunate to come to know many of the music greats there and travel to many of the hinterlands. I wept liked a baby when a "sanfoneiro" played Asa Branca on my birthday for me deep in the sertão of the northeastern state of Pernambuco.  Most fortunate of all, I met my "Girl from Ipanema" (well actually she was from neighboring Gávea, but close enough for jazz).... Now all that Brazilian experience has blended in with the classical, jazz and classical and pop Indian music that I love. As I compose and play nowadays, I try to stay sweet on the outside and to keep my nougat center soft and chewy.
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JG and the lovely Caroline