Of the four acts at the grand jazz showcase of the year to take place at the Tata Theatre from 22nd to 24th November, three belong to young, award-winning p r o d i g i e s — t h e youngest, Brandon Goldberg, is just 18. The veteran musician, the multi-Grammy-winning pianist and composer Gonzalo Rubalcaba, 61, will perform on the second evening.

Goldberg, slotted for the opening day is a pianist, whereas Matthew Whitaker, who is 23, plays the piano and organ. He and 30-year-old vocalist Veronica Swift will perform on the final day. For this issue, we spoke to the young brigade to find out what they are most looking forward to in India. Rubalcaba’s journey will be explored in the November issue.

Brandon Goldberg, 18 

Growing up in Miami, Goldberg comes from a nonmusical family. But there was a piano at home, since his mother had taken basic lessons when she was young. He was sent to a preschool where he was exposed to music and developed an exceptional love for it. His parents saw something in him that went beyond a three-year-old banging on a piano. They took him to local shows, and he developed a fondness for Frank Sinatra’s songs. Serious classical music education, though, began when he was six. 

It took Goldberg a few years to appreciate classical music, but that changed when, at 13, he began learning from renowned piano teacher Giselle Brodsky. His exposure to jazz came around the same time, when he began working with pianist Bill Charlap. He says, “I never took consistent jazz piano lessons, but Charlap helped refine my piano playing, my understanding of the Great American Songbook and helped me become aware of what I wanted to present. The piano is the centre of all music. Great composers write using the piano, and music theory is taught on it. General harmonic and melodic knowledge is rooted in piano theory.” This holistic view of music perhaps stems from the fact that the young pianist is also a composer. 

After a few shows in Miami, Goldberg gave his first big concert at Dizzy’s Club in New York when he was 13. The show marked the release of his first album Let’s Play! which included three original compositions and six standards. He recalls, “I worked with producer and bassist Ben Wolfe on that album. We wanted to pick music I was comfortable with, and which resonated with everyone else in the band.” Besides Wolfe on bass, the band included drummer Donald Edwards and saxophonist Marcus Strickland.

Brandon has two other releases. In Good Time was a collaboration with drummer Ralph Peterson, who passed away in 2021. Live At Dizzy’s, released in March this year, was recorded at the prominent club, and features Wolfe and drummer Aaron Kimmel. Golberg says, “The three of us were playing a lot together and were all keen on the idea of recording as a trio. I was always keen to do a live album, as some of my favourite albums have used that format. And Dizzy’s is one of my favourite sounding rooms in New York.” 

Between his debut at Dizzy’s five years ago and today, Goldberg has picked up the ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award of which he is the youngest recipient. He was a semi-finalist at the 2023 Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition and became a 2024 YoungArts Winner with Distinction recently. He has also performed at leading festivals including SFJAZZ (San Francisco) and the Newport Jazz Festival.

In Mumbai, he will be performing with some of his favourite musicians—Jimmy Macbride on drums, Vince Dupont on bass and Adam Stein on tenor saxophone. “I am looking forward to the show and am keen on visiting India often on subsequent shows.” 

Matthew Whitaker, 23 

Blind since birth, Matthew Whitaker showed signs of tremendous musical talent at the age of three when his grandfather gave him a keyboard. By the time he was five, he was also playing the organ. As a child prodigy, he mastered the Hammond organ at the age of nine, and four years later, was the youngest organist to be endorsed by the company. He became fluent in jazz, gospel, blues, Latin and many other musical genres, on piano and drums.

A dream came true when, at the age of 10, Whitaker was the opening performer at legendary musician Stevie Wonder’s induction into the Apollo Theater’s Hall of Fame. He says, “Stevie is someone I admire and have great respect for. It was also my first time meeting him. Besides him, I am influenced by organ players Lonnie Smith, Jimmy Smith and Charles Earland, and piano players Oscar Peterson, Art Tatum, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea.”

Whitaker played the Hammond organ for many years, but last year, got endorsed by Viscount, a newer company. His latest album On Their Shoulders: An Organ Tribute is a seven-track tribute to the organ players who influenced him. “One thing that I love to do is collaborate. I hope to do that more. I want to feature my original music, but I also hope to one day do some piano and drum tributes,” he says.

A 2023 graduate of The Juilliard School, majoring in Jazz Piano, Whitaker has won the Outstanding Soloist Award from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Charles Mingus and Essentially Ellington High School Competitions and Festivals. The versatile artiste has also scored Emmy-nominated projects. 

At the Mumbai show, Whitaker will be accompanied by Marcos Robinson on guitar, Ivan Llanes on percussion, Johnny Steele on drums and Liany Mateo on acoustic and electric bass. “I have always wanted to visit India. I am so intrigued by its history and culture. It is one thing to experience a culture through books but totally different to experience in person, especially for someone blind like me,” he says.

Veronica Swift, 30 

Vocalist Veronica Swift’s will be the final performance at the jazz festival this year and from the sound of it, will bear the stamp of her versatility. Having established her position in modern jazz with her albums Confessions and This Bitter Earth, she sought to experiment with different styles on her self-titled 2023 release. Besides jazz, this album has shades of French and Italian opera, European classical music, bossa nova, blues, rock, funk and vaudeville.

The daughter of singer and educator Stephanie Nakasian and pianist Hod O’Brien, Swift’s upbringing and base have been jazz-centric. Yet, she likes to describe herself as a ‘transgenre’ artiste. She says, “Rooted in jazz as I’ve been, there’s a uniquely visceral power in rock and soul music that’s always fuelled my creative passion, and rather than mask or confine that part of my identity, the people I admire most show themselves unabashedly and that’s the kind of tradition I want to be a part of.” She embraces a certain kind of theatricality in performance and attributes that to her later influences. “Since I was a child, I was drawn to the theatrical performers, especially rock singers. My favourites have been Robert Plant, Freddie Mercury and Steven Tyler, besides pop stars Michael Jackson and Lady Gaga,” she says. 

Swift’s jazz style is heavily influenced by bebop and includes plenty of scatting. “To develop scatting skills, you must approach your harmonic vocabulary and ear training like that of an instrumentalist. Basically, you need to transcribe and learn the great solos from the great musicians,” she explains.

Swift toured with her parents as a child, and even played the trumpet and piano. In 2016, she earned her BA in jazz vocal from the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music. Besides her studio albums, she has played with the likes of trumpeters Wynton Marsalis and Chris Botti, pianists Benny Green and Emmet Cohen, and pianist-singer Michael Feinstein. 

This will be Swift’s first visit to India. She says, “My buddy Emmet Cohen was at last year’s festival and says it was amazing. I have many singer students and fans in India whom I hope to meet.” She will arrive with her five-member band, TransGenre, consisting of herself on vocals and multi-genre artistes, who play the keyboards, guitar, bass and drums. “It is a wildly theatrical performance with powerful vocals as we take the audience on a kaleidoscopic journey through different genres of music. You won’t know where one begins and the other ends,” she says. This unique set is sure to increase her Indian fan base considerably.