Haymaker – a Ben Goldberg joint

Haymaker at Bird & Beckett is a new project from clarinetist Ben Goldberg, the Bay Area improviser who founded the New Klezmer Trio in 1992 — a group the San Francisco Chronicle credited with kicking open the door for radical experiments with Ashkenazi roots music — and has since made more than forty albums with collaborators including Nels Cline, John Zorn, Joshua Redman and Charlie Hunter. Twice named a Rising Star clarinetist in the DownBeat critics poll, Goldberg teaches improvisation at UC Berkeley and brings a band from the Bay Area’s experimental end: Matt Robidoux on electronics and prepared guitar, known for instruments of his own building and for work with Fred Frith and William Winant; David Ewell, bassist in the Ben Goldberg School; and drummer Tim Bulkley, whose credits run from Dayna Stephens and Peter Bernstein to Boz Scaggs. Haymaker has no recordings yet.