Rhythm in Contrast
Charles Goold, son of legendary saxophonist Ned Goold, on the launch of his first album, his musical influences and his new Haitian-Jazz proposal.
Photo: Lauren Desberg
As the frustrated musician that I am, I’m always in the look out for hidden gems in the city, and Smalls, known as one of the best places in the city to see rising talent in the New York jazz scene, had been in my bucket list for quite some time. Last Wednesday I accidentally found myself there and…boy…what a rich experience.
The ease and energy of Charles Goold caught my eye right away. He was part of the second group of musicians who filled the room with an explosion of rythms and sounds.
Between his multiple presentations, a photoshoot, and the launch of his new album: Rythm in Contrast, Charles managed to find some time to speak with us about this new project of his, his career, and his biggest influences.
Tell us about your childhood and your early experiences with jazz?
My father, Ned Goold, is a famous saxophonist, so I’ve been listening to jazz my entire life. In the only baby video of me that exists, you can hear Charly Parker in the background the entire time. My dad used to play next to Harry Connick Jr., so I grew up going to Harry Connick Jr.'s concerts and going to New Orleans for Jazz Fest year after year. We wouldn’t go to Mexico or Puerto Rico for the holidays, like any family would, we went to New Orleans all the time.
Do you come from a long family of musicians? Or is it just you and your father?
It was actually a bit unexpected. My grandmother gave my dad a Charly Parker record once, because she noticed he was getting into saxophone. I don’t think my grandma thought he would take it so seriously and actually become a professional musician. There was kind of like a little tension at some point around his career choice, but he just went crazy with it and went for it. He was the first musician in the family. Now it’s me and my brother, who is actually an amazing keyboardist. He has a record coming out soon, you’ll be hearing from him.
Why the drums?
Ironically I thought it was the easiest instrument. I don’t know if you want to talk about Freud, but I was the first born so I wanted to do everything as my dad. I wanted to speak like him, act like him and play music like him. When I was in first grade I wanted to play saxophone, but it took me almost an entire year to be able to make a sound, I got really desperate. At one of my dad’s shows I saw the drums, tapped it, and made a sound right away, so I was like… “oh alright, I’m going to do this." I thought it would be the fastest way to get into the stage with my dad.
Don’t you feel like jazz is becoming more popular lately?
Yeah I think a bit part of it is the fact that most universities now have a jazz program. So before in the 80’s it was only Berklee, then in the 90’s it really started to become a thing in other schools. Now we are starting to see the work of all of those young musicians that studied back then and who are now performing everywhere, we finally see the fruition.
Tell me about your new album?
I’ve always loved writing songs. I used to write songs with my electric guitar and bass around 2009. I then realized that I needed to focus on the drums if I wanted to become a professional drummer. So I put that aside and started really concentrating on getting my drumming together. I was doing that for a very long time, I got to a point where I was actually making a living out of it. But I had all these songs in my head, and I wanted to lead my own band, so I applied to Julliard and I got in!
At Julliard I learned about classical composition, jazz theory and jazz arranging and once I had all those tools, I was able to kind of run with that. So one thing I really noticed and I found to be useful when composing is to have a topic, a theme. So each song on the album is dedicated to someone and has a mission. The album is my coming out party, like “hey I’m a drummer. but I can write music too.” There’s a song dedicated to my mom, one to my dad, one is about police brutality, and so on. I put together a lot of styles of music that I got to experience by living in New York City.
My mom is from Haiti so one song has musical elements that remind me of the first time I was there in 2018. I wanted to blend Haitian rhythms with traditional jazz music. There is a long history of jazz musicians mixing Brazilian, French, Afro-Cuban styles, but there’s no much records that explicitly are mixing Haitian music with jazz rhythms. So I thought it would be cool to do it. I think it works.
What artists do you look up for inspiration?
I have a lot of influences. Just form living in New York City. The first music that really hit me... I used to do sound engineering at Fat Cat, and every Tuesday they would have a salsa night. And when I heard these guys playing, it blew my mind! When I moved here I was also playing bass with a lot of hip hop groups back in 2010. I got to see what hip hop really was in the underground Jamaica, Queens. Something you don’t learn in school.
Most recently, I’ve become really close with Afro-Venezualan people, who’ve shown me a lot of merengue music that is unbelievably fast!
And last but not least, my ex-partner, she is from DR, so just by hanging out with her family and being exposed to that culture and its sounds, really shook my senses.
What’s next?
I’m going to keep promoting the album for a couple of more weeks (sorry to my Instagram followers who’ve been floded with all my ads, but I put a lot of money into producing this record)…. I’m going on tour to Israel for nine days with a piano player, and then when I get back, I’m going to be preparing my first tour with my band. We’ll be going to Miami playing in three different spots down there. And then I’ll be playing in LA. And then end of June I’ll be at the Black Cat in San Francisco. I’ll be sharing everything, so stay tuned.
Lastly… What’s your favorite track from your new album?
Oh no! Don’t ask me that. It’s probably the first one, Secrets of Events. Pati’s Mood is a good one too.