Borah Bergman
| Borah Bergman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Background information | |
| Born |
December 13, 1926 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Died |
October 18, 2012 (aged 85) New York, U.S.[1] |
| Genres | Free jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Instruments | Piano |
| Years active | 1975–2012 |
Borah Bergman (December 13, 1926 – October 18, 2012) was an American free jazz pianist.
Training and influences
Bergman was born in Brooklyn to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents.[2][3] His grandfather Meir Pergamenick was a cantor.[4] Accounts of when he began to learn the piano vary: some assert that he learned clarinet as a child and did not commence his piano studies until adulthood;[5] others, that he had piano lessons from a young age;[3] one of his own accounts is that he took piano lessons as a child, then changed to clarinet, before returning to piano after being discharged from the army.[6] As an adult, he developed his left hand playing to the point where he became essentially ambidextrous as a pianist, and could play equally fast in both hands,[5] and they could act completely independently of each other;[7] Bergman himself preferred the term "ambi-ideation" to "ambidextrous", as it conveyed the added ability to express ideas achieved when both hands were equal.[6] Bergman cited Earl Hines, Bud Powell,[3] and Lennie Tristano[7] as formative influences, although his own style was based on free improvisation rather than song form. Commenting on his other influences, Bergman said that "I was influenced strongly by Ornette Coleman... I was also very influenced by chamber music and Bach and Dixieland or New Orleans, where all of the instruments were playing contrapuntally and polyphonically. So I figured I'd like to do it myself".[6]
Performance and recordings
Until the 1970s he played little in public, concentrating on private practice and his work as a school teacher.[3] He recorded four albums as a soloist, most notably on the European label Soul Note, before embarking on duo and trio albums from the 1990s. A small number of solo and quartet albums were also released from the mid-1990s. The style for which he is best known is described in The Penguin guide to jazz recordings: "His astonishing solo performances recall the 'two pianists' illusion associated with Art Tatum, though in a more fragmentary and disorderly sound-world".[8]
Discography
- Discovery (Chiaroscuro Records, 1975)
- Bursts of Joy (Chiaroscuro Records, 1976)
- A New Frontier (Soul Note, 1983)
- Upside Down Visions (Soul Note, 1984)
- The Fire Tale with Evan Parker (Soul Note, 1990)
- Inversions with Thomas Chapin (Muworks, 1992)
- The Human Factor with Andrew Cyrille (Soul Note, 1993)
- First Meeting with Roscoe Mitchell and Thomas Buckner (Knitting Factory, 1994)
- The Italian Concert with Roscoe Mitchell (Soul Note, 1994)
- The October Revolution with Joe McPhee, Rashied Ali and Wilber Morris (Evidence, 1994)
- Reflections on Ornette Coleman and the Stone House with Hamid Drake (Soul Note, 1995)
- Blue Zoo with Thomas Borgmann and Peter Brötzmann (Konnex Records, 1996)
- Eight By Three with Anthony Braxton and Peter Brötzmann (Mixtery Records, 1996)
- Geometry with Ivo Perelman (Leo Records, 1997)
- Ride Into the Blue with Thomas Borgmann and Peter Brötzmann (Konnex Records, 1996)
- Exhilaration with Peter Brötzmann and Andrew Cyrille (Soul Note, 1997)
- Ikosa Mura with Frode Gjerstad, Bobby Bradford and Pheeroan akLaff (Cadence, 1997)
- New Organization with Oliver Lake (Soul Note, 1997)
- Toronto 1997 with Thomas Chapin (Boxholder Records, 1997)
- The River of Sounds with Conny Bauer and Mat Maneri (Boxholder Records, 2001)
- The Double Idea (Boxholder Records, 2002)
- The Mahout with George Haslam and Paul Hession (Slam, 2003)
- Meditations for Piano (Tzadik Records, 2003)
- Rivers in Time with Frode Gjerstad (FMR Records, 2003)
- Acts of Love with Lol Coxhill and Paul Hession (Mutable Music, 2005)
- One More Time with Giorgio Dini (Silta Records, 2007)
- Live at Tortona with Stefano Pastor (Mutable Music, 2009)
- Luminescence with Greg Cohen, Kenny Wollesen and John Zorn (Tzadik Records, 2009)
References
- ↑ Obituary by Christoph Wagner (German)
- ↑ Obituary in Wire
- 1 2 3 4 Kelsey, Chris (December 2004) Chris Kelsey Borah Bergman: His Fatha's Son. JazzTimes.
- ↑ Borah Bergman: Meditations for Piano
- 1 2 Kelsey, Chris Artist Biography. AllMusic. Retrieved September 22, 2013.
- 1 2 3 Borah Bergman: You Must Judge a Man by the Work of His Hands (November 4, 2005) All About Jazz.
- 1 2 Polillo, Arrigo. In A New Frontier [CD liner notes]. Soul Note.
- ↑ Cook, Richard & Morton, Brian (2008) The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.), p. 116. Penguin.