About

Longtime Austin-based musician and composer Alan Goldberg uses his passion for melody, harmony, and the divine to fuel his compositions.  Anchored by the piano and supported by jazz, progressive rock, and blues, his musical explorations flow from melodic progressive piano to mellow jazz in a seamless web of musical storytelling.

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Goldberg is a boomer. His roots are in the music that he came of age with – The Who, Yes, Jethro Tull, ELP, Chick Corea, Frank Zappa. Sure, those bands kept making music and he always listened. But it’s about those first years when they were putting out their core work and the feeling of being surprised and unsure where things were heading musically that he liked. That feeling is what he wants to recreate with his music, in his unique style. Goldberg wants to create the same experience for the listener that he had growing up, when he would put a new album on the turntable,  sit in his dad’s big recliner,  and as the needle dropped,  not know what to expect, or where the music would lead him.

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He followed that branch of music from his roots over the years and found artists that, to him, sustain the spirit and feeling of those bands. with strong melodies and harmonies Bands like The Dear Hunter, Coheed and Cambria, Circa Survive, Between the Buried and Me, and lots of Blues and Jazz thrown into the mix.

 

Goldberg grew up in Waterloo, Iowa, lived in Minneapolis for many winters,– think Prince,  The Replacements, and Peter Himmelman -   and now lives in Austin, Texas, the land of Stevie Ray Vaughan. He’s played in local blues/rock bands for the past 20+ years.  It all comes together in a well-seasoned stew of musical inspiration.

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 He often uses an improvisational piano style to record initial piano tracks, captured live, then adds tracks of ensemble instruments,  using real musicians and virtual instruments as the music demands. This approach gave birth to the

“Passion No Distraction” album, as well as his previous three albums, “Fuel For The Fire”, “Small Acts” (solo piano), and “Chasing Stray Flames”.

The music from his first three albums is used for meditation, yoga, relaxation, and background music in spiritual settings. Goldberg plays a fusion of  prog rock, blues, and jazz in "Passion No Distraction", and returns to jazz ensemble in "The Show EP".

 

 “My technique works well with video. I watch. I play in real time, and then I discover the piece.  It can work well when I’m watching something that directs passion in a particular way. Everything can spark an inspiration. "