Phillip Golub
is a pianist, improviser, and composer based in Brooklyn, NY. Originally from Los Angeles, he creates highly original and expressive music, grounded in but not constrained by his engaged practice in jazz, creative music, and new music. Technically audacious, Phillip sublates sound worlds as distant as Thelonious Monk and Alexander Scriabin, the ars subtilior and Cecil Taylor, negating conventions, yet building on traditions.

Phillip’s recordings have been praised as “cutting edge” (Sequence 21) and containing “a profound concept […] triumphant […] fascinating” (Pop Matters). As a player, he has been described as bringing “assurance, charisma, and infectious enthusiasm” (Steve Smith) to his performances and manifesting “exhilarating energy, charisma, and a canny ability to transform the complex and even inscrutable into sophisticated yet joyful noise” (Allmusic.com).

Phillip is in demand as a pianist on New York’s jazz, creative music, and world music stages, performing and recording regularly across numerous sub-genres and scenes, such as Layale Chaker, DoYeon Kim, Lesley Mok, Anna Webber, Jacob Shulman, and Seajun Kwon, at venues such as Roulette, National Sawdust, and many other Brooklyn mainstays.

Phillip has an unwavering commitment to honoring the genealogy of jazz. He has played numerous times with Cecil McBee and worked extensively with Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding on their opera … (Iphigenia). He continues to play a crucial role in the Shorter estate, digitizing and preparing manuscripts for publication.