The Sofia Goodman Group | Receptive

Sofia Goodman continues her meteoric ascent in the jazz world with Receptive, her release on Joyous Records. The much-lauded Nashville drummer-composer presents on her third album a profoundly personal cycle of eight original compositions that explore the human values that she holds most dear. The team that augments her journey through her inner self includes the latest incarnation of the renowned Sofia Goodman Group—trumpeter Blaise Hearn, trombonist Desmond Ng, saxophonists Dan Hitchcock and Jovan Quallo, pianist Alex Murphy, bassist Leland Nelson, and percussionist Jimmy Lopez—as well as Grammy-nominated musician and recent Nashville transplant Pascal Le Boeuf, who serves as producer. 

Receptive represents a careful refinement of the rich, expansive approach that was the hallmark of Goodman’s previous album, 2023’s Secrets of the Shore. It offers the same panoply of grooves, lush harmonies, and textural colors, delivered in a variety of introspective moods (befitting their titles) as well as with a fresh compositional and conceptual confidence. 

She attributes this in part to the involvement of Le Boeuf, her first experience with an outside producer. “He’d want us to really experiment and get into new territory and get out of our heads to try new things,” Goodman says. “Having him in the studio raised the bar for everybody there, because he’s such an amazing talent.”

Let there be no doubt, however, that Goodman is the leader; Receptive is her vision. From the sweet warmth of the opening “Trust,” to the suspenseful stop-time and driving swing of “The Space Within,” to the knowing contentment (and again, driving swing) of the closing title track, the drummer’s presence both literal and psychic is unmistakable.

But that doesn’t mean the other Group members aren’t powerful presences in their own right. Quallo’s gorgeous flute illuminates the charming “Allow,” both in his pacific reading of the melody and his gymnastic solo (which Lopez follows with a purposeful solo statement of his own). Nelson and Ng each offer sharp-eared melodic submissions on “Presence,” while “Socket” finds Goodman’s thoughtfully improvised drums leading the whole Group into a dark, querulous free counterpoint that calls upon the listener to be receptive indeed.

Sofia Goodman was born December 22, 1987, in Michigan, but adopted as an infant by a family living near Boston, Massachusetts. There her musical pursuits began with childhood piano lessons. A friend’s drum kit, however, quickly stole both her ears and her heart. 

She was a punk-rock kid when she attended Berklee College of Music’s Summer Program—but a class there taught by bassist esperanza spalding turned her head. She enrolled in Berklee’s undergraduate program, determined to hone her craft as a drummer, and gradually made her way deeper into jazz as she was earning her degree in Drum Set Performance. 

Goodman’s postcollege life in Boston was suddenly upended by a fire that consumed her apartment in the city. Needing a fresh start, she relocated to Music City, USA, also known as Nashville, Tennessee. It was an ideal place for a young freelance musician to live and work—and, as it turned out, the city’s concert halls and recording studios were filled with far more than just the country music it’s best known for.

Goodman plied her skills with musicians of all stripes, at the same time studying composition for a master’s degree from Belmont University. It was only a short time before she was ready to form her own band. Those early efforts would evolve into what is now the Sofia Goodman Group, building a following throughout the South and into the Midwest. Her first album, 2018’s Myriad of Flowers, received a nomination for Best Jazz Album from the Nashville Industry Music Awards. With Secrets of the Shore, Goodman’s 2023 follow-up, she won that award, and began as well to gain national recognition in the greater jazz community. Receptive, her third effort, pushes her further still on the path to success.