Jeff Lederer

Schoenberg On The Beach and Balls of Simplicity, the two fall releases from Jeff Lederer’s Little (i) Music, offer us a portal into an expansive sonic world. They’re not companion pieces, and yet they’re related by more than just their shared creator.

Schoenberg On The Beach is a jazz song cycle based on works by composers Arnold Schoenberg and his student Anton Webern. The album includes texts the composers associated with those pieces by poets Rainer Maria Rilke and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and others. Joining Lederer’s clarinet and flute are vocalist Mary LaRose; cellist Hank Roberts; Patricia Brennan on vibraphone and electronics; bassist Michael Formanek; and drummer Matt Wilson. Marty Ehrlich plays bass clarinet on one track; and turntablist Arktureye creates fascinating interstitial sound collages by remixing archival audio from Coney Island.

The album, at least in part, takes inspiration from the ocean. Lederer grew up a quarter mile from the beach in Pacific Palisades, California. His high school math teacher was Larry Schoenberg and no, that’s not a coincidence – Arnold was Larry’s father.

“Arnold Schoenberg suffered from asthma,” said Lederer, “and often sought relief from his respiratory illness by spending time at the beaches of the Mediterranean, as you can see in photos of him in his bathing trunks at the shore vacationing with his students Webern and Berg. While I think he struggled with the cultural environment of his last city of residence, Los Angeles, he no doubt enjoyed his proximity to the ocean.”

After growing up on the West Coast, Lederer has lived for many years in Brooklyn, itself a coastal place and the home of Lederer’s beloved Coney Island, and also the Luna Park theme park.

“Luna Park opened in 1912, the same year as the premiere of Schoenberg’s ‘Pierrot lunaire (Pierrot In The Moonlight),’ said Lederer. Two of the pieces on Schoenberg On The Beach come from “Pierrot.”

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