Jeff Goldblum to Bring an Effervescent Evening of Jazz to the Winspear This Week

Jeff Goldblum is many things: The star of some of the highest-grossing films of all time. An accidental sex symbol. An intentional fashion plate. And an irresistible subject for memes. But it is his secondary (and no less successful) career that really defines him.

Because, perhaps above all else, Jeff Goldblum is a jazz musician. As the leader and pianist of the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra, he delivers a mix of classic jazz and American songbook standards in the Goldblum-iest of ways: charming, accessible, sophisticated and sweet.

Having been cast in an early play as a tween, the actor was soon writing "Please God, let me be an actor" repeatedly on his steamy shower door. Already determined to take the stage and screen by storm, he was unknowingly also set on a parallel path as a musician.

“Taking us back to when I was 10 years old, my father said if you find something you love to do, that might be the lighthouse for a vocational choice,” he tells us. “When I was in the camp between 5th and 6th grade, which is the age of our oldest boy now, I took part in this recital. They cast me in this play, and that night the seed took, but at the same time, my parents had given us all music lessons. I wasn’t such a good student — I wouldn’t practice — but the teacher gave me some jazz arrangements and there was something in me; I just loved it.”

By 15, Goldblum was cold-calling cocktail lounges to play around his native Pittsburgh. By 17, he was living in New York, studying acting with Sanford Meisner and cramming a piano into his new apartment. We all know the trajectory after that (roles in such classics like The Big Chill, Jurassic Park and Independence Day). Still, throughout his decades in Hollywood, he continued to hone his chops, eventually forming a band with his former co-star Peter Weller, playing Monday nights at Hollywood’s Las Palmas restaurant.

“30 years ago, Peter Weller and I started to play jazz together,” Goldblum recalls. “He was friends with Miles Davis, who suggested, ‘You should get a regular gig, and you’ll get better.' The other landmark was Tom Lewis from Decca saw me on Graham Norton, and that gave him the idea to sign us, and we’re still blooming, how about that? Over the years, we stayed under the radar intentionally, but he was such a good guy and Decca and Verve were such great labels.”

Naming the band Mildred Snitzer after an “interesting and unusual lady” who was a friend of Goldblum's mother, the band released its first record in 2018 and dropped its third full-length album, Still Blooming, earlier this year.

Drawing on Goldblum’s refined formula of tweaking the classics, the band is also fond of a guest vocalist or two. Past collaborators have included Fiona Apple, Miley Cyrus, Sarah Silverman and Sharon Van Etten. Of course, Goldblum pulled out some big guns for the new album by roping in his Wicked co-stars. Ariana Grande delivers a light-as-air version of "I Don’t Know Why (I Just Do)," while Cynthia Erivo takes a turn at the sentimental "We’ll Meet Again."

“It’s not strategic, but it all happens spontaneously,” Goldblum says of his starry collabs. “I was on the set, and we were all just enjoying music. I was singing everything I knew and started to sing 'Love You Like I Do' and Ariana said, ‘My grandmother sang that all the time.’ I said 'No kidding? We have this band if you ever want to record anything.' I’d done a couple of movies with Scarlett [Johansson] and [we] found ourselves at the premiere of Asteroid City. It just happens like that. I’m crazy about her. I do a wish list: Billie Eilish would be fantastic, and Lana Del Rey. Lady Gaga would be a dream come true.”

Judging from his past success rate, that will probably happen, too. But in the meantime, even without the grand guest chanteuses, Goldblum’s high-watt charisma will no doubt make his upcoming show at the Winspear Opera House on Saturday, Sept. 13, an entertaining evening.

“So far, our approach has been the same,” he says of the show. “I have a spontaneous exchange with the audience and an intimate kind of dialogue, and so far, it works. I’m not sure how, but it seems to translate. Many of my band members have been there for the last decade, but there are a couple of new additions. The current band is as good as we’ve ever had, and our way of recording is becoming more clearly to our liking, and I’m digging that more and more.”

And who knows, judging from Goldblum’s kids’ growing interest in music, The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra may become a family act somewhere down the line.

“Our family has been spending time in Europe filming Wicked, and the kids are eight and 10 now and have been laying into piano themselves,” he says. “The two of them joined in during a show; Charlie played "Flight of the Bumblebee," and River played the theme from James Bond and stole the show. We try to expose them to as much cultural nutrition and real nutrition as we can, and you know, they’ve gotten a kick out of it.”

Tickets for Jeff Goldblum & The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra at The Winspear Opera House are available now.