Jeff Goldblum & The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra photo: Pari Dukovic / universal Music
Sat, Nov 3 / 8 PM / Campbell Hall Jeff Goldblum, piano John Storie, guitar James King, sax Alex Frank, bass Joe Bagg, organ Kenny Elliott, drums Program will be announced from the stage.
Jeff Goldblum’s longtime hobby might come as a surprise to his fans. The actor, now 61 years old, has been performing in movies, television, and on stage for more than four decades. In addition to Jurassic Park, he’s acted in Independence Day, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Big Chill, The Fly and dozens of other films and TV shows, where he provides that uniquely wry, charming and unpredictable edge. But before Jeff Goldblum was an actor, he played piano. “I’m from Pittsburgh, and I played piano when I was a kid,” Goldblum said before a recent performance. “I got the idea to play out and about in cocktail lounges when I was like, 15, and got a job or two.”
Goldblum says he still prioritizes his acting career, so the shows have not always been exactly weekly. But when he’s not busy, he’ll get his band together for the very loose, improvised three-hour show at an L.A. club called Rockwell. “So we have a kind of hootenanny, or be-in, or some kind of a jam session is what they call it,” Goldblum says, “and people seem to enjoy it.” Goldblum recently signed with Decca Records and recorded his first full-length record, Jeff Goldblum & the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra: The Capitol Studios Sessions, which will be released on November 9, 2018. Special thanks to
Ever since, whenever he’s not playing a character on set, he’s playing a piano at home: “These days and for many years, I just hardly spend a day where I don’t pass a piano in my place and just play for as long as I can.” Sometime in the 1990s – and he can’t recall exactly when – Goldblum got a band together through a friend of a friend named John Mastro, who had connections in the local music scene. “We just started playing,” says Mastro, who still manages the band. There was “no advertising or anything. It was just something to do.” The semi-regular group of professional jazz players that perform with Goldblum even took on a name: The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, after a friend of Goldblum’s family back in Pittsburgh.
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