Finding His Own Voice

Noam Preminger named his debut record after the street he grew up on in Canton, Conn., a nod to his family ties. Matthew Fried

Noam Preminger named his debut record after the street he grew up on in Canton, Conn., a nod to his family ties. Matthew Fried

by George Robinson
Special To The Jewish Week

Noah Preminger is too young to be jaded and too candid to be guarded. Slightly more than a month before his 23rd birthday, he has already established himself in the jazz world as a new force to be reckoned with, a promising tenor saxophonist and creative composer who has found his own voice at an age when most instrumentalists are still trying to figure out who to listen to.

Preminger’s debut CD, “Dry Bridge Road,” is garnering much-deserved raves from the jazz press, and his live performances have been received with similar enthusiasm.

He attributes the ease with which he sat down in the leader’s chair to the comfort level provided by his band mates — guitarist Ben Monder, trumpeter Russ Johnson,

pianist Frank Kimbrough, bassist John Hebert and drummer Ted Poor — and, most of all, the set’s producer, John McNeil, who has been mentoring the tenor player for some time.

He might just as easily have credited his parents — indeed, on the album jacket, he does just that. In fact, the album’s title, which is the name of the street he grew up on in Canton, Conn., a small town near Hartford, is a sort of tacit bow to his family ties.

“My parents are wonderful people and great parents,” Preminger told The Jewish Week. “When I was growing up in Canton, we learned about a terrific arts program in a high school in West Hartford. They have a very strong music program in particular. My parents said, ‘If you want to pursue music, you should be in the best situation possible. Why don’t we move to West Hartford and you can go to that school?’”
Which is exactly what they did for four years.

Equally important, Preminger said, is the fact that although neither of his parents is a musician, both of them are avid jazz fans and eager to share their enthusiasms.

“My dad will call me, ‘Have you checked out this record by so-and-so,’” Preminger said. “They both have very good taste in music. They have a huge record collection. I grew up on Weather Report and John Coltrane and Joshua Redman, Jan Garbarek, the Grateful Dead. It was a healthy upbringing.”
It was also a Jewish upbringing, one that has stayed with him.

“I do feel a connection,” he said. “I’m a partially practicing Jew; I don’t go to synagogue very often, but I’ve played at a number of Jewish fundraisers. My dad’s parents are very religious — grandfather just passed away — my mother’s parents are semi-religious. My dad had a very strict Jewish childhood. But it sort of ended with my parents.”

But his father passed on some difficult memories.
“He grew up in Bayonne, N.J., which was a rough area and he was always called nasty things, stuff that I don’t need to repeat,” Preminger said. “He was a great basketball player and there was some serious bigotry that was going on. He had to take a lot of it.”

Then there’s the family name. Inevitably, the musician is asked if he is related to filmmaker Otto Preminger. In fact, he is.

“He’s a distant cousin,” Preminger says. “My great-grandfather worked in a factory in Czernowitz, a family-run factory, and Otto worked there with him. In his autobiography [Otto] says he was born in Vienna. I guess back then you wanted to be from a nice place. So he told everyone he was from Vienna.”
In Jewish circles Bukovina, the region in which Czernowitz was located, might have more yichus (pedigree), but in Hollywood one supposes Vienna had more juice.

There’s another Jewish connection in Preminger’s professional life, one that is much more benign; he is a product of the same late-night jam sessions as many of the hot young Israeli players in town and knows several more of them from his studies at the New England Conservatory of Music. (He also counts NEC stalwart and klezmer giant Hankus Netsky as someone he knows well from school, although he expresses no particular affinity for klezmer.)

“I have a number of Israeli friends in jazz: Omer Klein and Hagai Cohen, in particular,” Preminger said. “I’ve been playing with them frequently and the music that comes out is very Israeli-inspired. I mean, it definitely has a vibe, simple melodies and chord changes. But these guys are very advanced musicians. I like it.”
That melodic and harmonic simplicity — combined with the rhythmic complexity of many Middle-Eastern musical traditions — is quite a different sound from Preminger’s own music. There are six originals on “Dry Bridge Road,” as well as tunes by Dave Douglas, Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh, and Preminger’s friend and frequent collaborator Eric Lane. What all nine compositions have in common is a cool, understated complexity, a slightly cerebral detachment that calls for some serious thought from both improvisers and listeners. It’s not dispassionate music by any means, but there is a certain intriguing reserve.
Preminger’s playing is as muscular as his writing is brainy. He gets around the big horn with an ease and power far beyond his — in jazz terms — tender years. He brings the same sense of ease to the working life of the band.

“I’ve been in enough situations,” he said, referring to jam sessions when he was younger in which older musicians tried to test him musically. “I’m confident with my playing,” Preminger said. “There’s no point in being nervous.”

Noah Preminger will be appearing at the Cornelia Street Café (29 Cornelia St.) with a slightly downsized version of his band on May 8 at 9 and 11 p.m. On June 18, the band will perform at Kitano (66 Park Avenue) at 8 and 10 p.m. Preminger’s CD “Dry Bridge Road” is on Nowt Records. For more information, visit his Web site, www.noahpreminger.com.