What’s a nice Jewish boy doing with a musical hit on the contemporary-Christian charts and a Dove Award from the Gospel Music Association?
“Doing what I love to do,” answered pianist-songwriter Jim Brickman in a telephone interview from his Los Angeles home. “Making music.”
While Brickman considers himself “spiritually Jewish,” he said he hopes his five best-selling albums, several chart-topping songs and PBS television special will never suffer from “definition by a category.”
“I believe music is music,” said the 38-year-old. “While Judaism is at the core of who I really am, my music permeates beyond any particular religious or spiritual belief. It’s about making people connect emotionally.”
Brickman’s current 65-city tour, which has him scheduled to play at the Marin Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium tomorrow night, should be a good indication of the Ohio native’s emotional side.
Featuring Brickman on the piano, Anne Cochrane on vocals and Tracy Silverman, his Jewish electric violin player, the concert will be “intimate, fun and light.”
With pure instrumentals as well as songs with vocals, his music combines New Age with soft-pop.
“It’s for people who enjoy music events but don’t want to deal with loud chaos,” said the brown-haired, blue-eyed pianist. “The simplicity and melodic nature of my songs makes people feel very comfortable. One audience member once told me, ‘I felt like I was over at your house for dinner.'”
Brickman, himself, hopes to have dinner with his family over the High Holy Days. He’s grateful for the opportunity, because he’s on the road so often.
“I’m just a regular guy,” he added, describing himself as fairly quiet and intense when not onstage. Perhaps his stagecraft stemmed from his confirmation in a Reform synagogue in Cleveland.
Drawn to the piano at the age of 4, when he became fascinated with his neighbor’s keyboard, Brickman pursued music throughout his school years. The son of a stockbroker father and a librarian-journalist mother — both of whom harbored traditional Jewish values — he was the only musical talent in his family.
“There was no musician in the family so I wasn’t surrounded by it by any means,” said Brickman. “I’m not sure where it came from. I think sometimes my parents even scratch their heads.”
Brickman’s parents bought him his first piano at the age of 10 and as a teenager he won first place in the Cleveland “Battle of the Bands” contest for a piano arrangement of the Boz Scaggs song “We’re All Alone.”
While attending the Cleveland Institute of Music as a classical piano student and Case Western Reserve as a business student, he mailed piano tapes to jingle companies and ad agencies. That led to a 12-year career as a composer of themes and jingles.
“I liked doing it and I was fairly successful at it,” remembered Brickman. “I always thought that was going to be my life — I had no idea this was coming.”
By “this” Brickman means moving to L.A., signing with Windham Hill and producing a string of successful albums and hit songs. Four of his records have gone gold, and he has sold more than three million albums — considered impressive in the adult contemporary instrumental genre.
Within his musical compositions, Brickman said, he tries to capture and express idealism.
But “I’m not selling love,” he said. “I’m selling melodic — romantic, really — subtle kind of piano music that happens to come from me.”