Shlomi Goldenberg

When I was 5 years old the Opera Porgy & Bess came on a tour to Israel
and my father, who was a concert pianist, accompanied the singers. He came home with the score and played this amazing music by composer George Gershwin. 

It took another 4 years when I heard Sidney Bechette version of Summertime that I was entranced in this music called jazz. I still remember that special sound
of the soprano saxophone. 

What finally convinced me was going with my father at age 10 to a concert at the Mann Auditorium with jazz greats: Dizzy Gillespie with his crocked trumpet, Sonny Stit
playing the alto saxophone, drummer Art Blakey hitting the drums in his amazing way and finally the master of composition-Thelonius Monk, playing Round About Midnight.

I started collecting Coltrane records and was drawn into the Avant-garde. 
That was my natural ground, the Abstract and difficult music of Ornette Colman and
early Chick Corea and Anthony Braxton, Barry Altshul and Dave Holland. 
I trained for the Olympics without going through basic Gym exercises. 

Most of my high school years I devoted to playing classical Oboe learning the Baroque language.

After my army service I bought a second hand tenor saxophone and played in a blues band
never learning how to hold the mouthpiece correctly. I was accepted for computer studies at the 
Tel Aviv University, but I took my enrolment money back and bought a plane ticket to Seattle Washington where I had a sweetheart waiting for me. Romance did not last for too long but I found a school called Cornish where some of jazz greats were teaching: Gary Peacock, Julian Priester and Art Landy.

I started formal saxophone studies and found out that I was holding my mouthpiece upside down, and started being devoted to learning the art of music.