If there is one thing about Jeff Goldblum that everyone could agree with, it’s that he never ceases to amaze.
Whether it’s his quirky characters in both hit and offbeat movies, the way he overexaggerates his conversations with random, sudden hand gestures, or just how smoothly he can flirt with the most reserved of women, there is just something about the man that everyone can love.
Although the sly yet goofy actor has thousands of fans across the world, many of which include star celebrities, a lot of people don’t know that he isn’t only just an actor.
The strange, sexy, hilarious entity that is Jeff Goldblum is, in addition to his wide array of other talents and pastimes, a musician.
More specifically, the man loves all things Jazz, and he knows how to use those alien-like fingers of his to work a keyboard!
While many people were already privy to the fact that Goldblum loves to jam, and even has a band that released their first full-length album last year titled The Capitol Sessions available on Amazon, a lot of people had no idea that the album recently sky-rocketed to the top of the charts.
Jeff Goldblum & The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra released their Sessions album on November 9th.
Within less than one week the album was topping charts. Namely, it took the number 1 spot on both Jazz Albums and Traditional Jazz Albums on the Billboard charts.
Granted, jazz isn’t selling like it did decades ago when the classically unpredictable genre’s cultural giants were performing it back in the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s.
When the OG’s of Jazz like Nat King Cole, Herbie Hancock, and Nina Simone were on the scene, the genre was overwhelmingly popular and selling like crazy.
While the eccentric group of musicians comprising Jeff Goldblum & The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra might not be pushing sales as well as, say, Ariana Grande’s recent release Thank U, Next which has sold over 81,000 and been streamed well over 5 million times now, the Capitol Sessions is still doing well in its genre.
The Jazz band had sold over 3,000 copies of the throwback style album within just a couple of weeks of being released. In a music climate where the Jazz genre is nearly last on the list, the group is doing pretty damn well for themselves.
Along with Goldblum, The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra boasts amazing musicians such as renowned German Jazz trumpeter Till Brönner, spirited Jazz musician Lincoln Adler on the sax, fellow actor/musician Peter Weller occasionally on horn, former American Idol contestant and award-winning singer Haley Reinhart, Irish singer and songwriter Imelda May, and even features comedian Sarah Silverman providing guest vocals and some comedic interaction.
According to Jeff Goldblum in an interview with Billboard, he says the album is supposed to be a throwback to the earlier days of Jazz which Goldblum describes as a beautiful era.
The actor and musician said the band intends for the album to a give a tip of the hat to those earlier years,
“when Jazz was fun, social, sexy music instead of something a little more esoteric.”
With Goldblum’s added twist on classics like I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel To Be Free), Stand Up Straight And Fly Right, and Cantaloupe Island, there’s no doubt that The Capitol Sessions release does exactly that.
It doesn’t hurt that Goldblum’s infamously quirky personality traits as an actor have carried over to his Jazz performance almost seamlessly, and pretty effortlessly on Jeff’s part.
In the video, while the orchestra plays he can often be seen making hilarious facial gestures.
The energy-addled performer can never keep still, and even while playing the piano makes his all-too-familiar sweeping hand gestures between tapping the keys.
Notably, unlike many actors-turned-musicians, Goldblum frequently stops to take in the amazing work of his stage companions, making sure to share the limelight with them throughout the set.
Although they only recently released their first full-length album, Jeff Goldblum & The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra have been on the scene keeping Jazz alive for a lot longer than most people realize.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Goldblum reveals that he has actually been playing the piano since he was about 10 years old, and has been playing in public clubs since he was a teenager.
Goldblum recalls that when he started to develop a love for playing the hell out of the piano and honed his talents, he called every Pittsburgh cocktail lounge listed in the phone book!
“I would say, ‘I understand you’re looking for a pianist.’ Most of them would say, ‘No, we don’t even have a piano here. I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ 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.”
Fast forward to 1984, and the Jazz-tinkering actor decided it was time to leverage all of that quirky energy through his music.
When Goldblum and fellow actor Peter Weller were wrapping up work on Buckaroo Bonzai, they would often go back to their hotel and have some jam sessions.
Later that year Weller was working on the set of another movie with Woody Allen, who he’d told about his and Goldblum’s shared passion for playing Jazz late into the night.
According to Goldblum, it was Woody himself, also a fellow Jazz lover and dabbler, who urged Weller to start playing as a resident group at a club to hone their skill sets. Goldblum recalls Weller telling him about his conversation with Allen:
“I was talking to Woody who said, ‘Oh, you and Jeff get together and play? You guys should do what I do and have a regular gig and play with good guys and you’ll get better and it’ll be fun.'”
Indeed, the two decided to give it a go and Goldblum has been playing on the scene at least once a week ever since, often with Weller beside him.
Since the ’90s, anyone who cared to meet the zany actor/musician/smoldering conversationalist has been able to do so by visiting the Rockwell Table in Los Angelas.
Here Goldblum has been playing at least one night per week for nearly 3 decades now. The whimsical 66-year-old plays with the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra to a laid back crowd in between random discussions with the audience, making it somewhat of a variety show.
In the video below, you can see the Rockwell Table vibe that the band so exquisitely captures on The Capitol Sessions, which was recorded in a studio with a live audience specifically to replicate that infectiously happy energy.
With talent like this, we hope to hear as many new albums from Goldblum and his band as we have seen movies he’s acted in.
Watch and listen in the video below!
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