section of Manhattan at 183rd St. and Pinehurst just north of the George Washington Bridge, one block west of Ft.Washington Ave.
(closest subway stop is the A Train to 181st St./Ft.Washington Ave.
) For more info. and reservations call 212-568-9628. Tickets are and unique pianists in the history of jazz.
Crediting Bud Powell as well as Art Tatum's dexerity, Teddy Wilson (with whom he briefly studied), Lennie Tristano's hornlike phrasing, cross-handed playing. Influenced also by chamber music and Bach, and Dixieland/New Orleans where all of the instruments play contrapuntally and polyphonically, Bergman has history of jazz. Bergman has always been determined to create a new way of playing.
He spent several years teaching his left hand to be able to play everything his right could play, which for a while took the form of compositions and improvisations entirely for the left hand. He was endurance, and by the music of Ornette Coleman, and to have that style reflect a greater equality of its parts. He has credited his parent's left-wing beliefs for these ideas of equality inherent in his even-handed, ambidextrous approach.
Regularly hailed for his originality, Bergman continues to forge a new pianistic path as a one-of-a-kind pianist, composer and improviser whose originality lies in his entirely personal approach and utilization of left-handed and cross-handed techniques. In essence CDs a year since the early '90s. Though he worked sporadically as a solo artist in the early part of his recording career as his first four releases were solo piano, he eventually found Braxton and Peter Brtzmann, as well as a host of drummers including Hamid Drake and I saw that originality is the great equalizer.
It cuts through everything, through all the impediments in the way...
I decided to do something that nobody else was doing...
[and became] consumed with developing the left hand. The left hand was very important with the stride pianists and ragtime, and the Swing pianists had a certain approach. But I wanted a left hand that knew, that could play like the right hand plays with phrasing.
And I felt that it was just a matter of any idiot can do it - it's just that I was the only idiot doing it [laughs]! I knew there was no point in sounding almost as good as Bud Powell! The left hand [is] a perfect vehicle for me.
..I get these impulses.
In order for my impulses to come out, I need a recovery act and the left hand would always recover quickly and make things correct...
I take a lot of chances and if you take a lot of chances you could fall on your face, but the left hand would always come and help me out. You can be disorganized, but if you can organize your disorganization, then you're organized [laughs] Leftie, rightie, whatever you're doing, it's what you say that's important. If you've got something to say, it works.
If you have nothing to say, it doesn't.
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