There are concerts where the performer arrives, plays the songs and leaves. And then there is Jeff Goldblum. From practically the moment he appeared Sunday, August 23, Goldblum seemed determined to eliminate whatever invisible barrier normally separates the stage from the audience.
He talked to people. He quizzed them. He riffed on their answers. He chatted with musicians in his own band and members of the San Diego Symphony. At various moments, the evening felt less like a conventional concert than some wonderfully displaced variety show from another era, hosted by a man seemingly incapable of encountering another human being without becoming genuinely curious about them. That looseness could easily have become shtick. Instead, it was the evening's greatest charm.
Goldblum has been performing jazz with the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra for roughly three decades, and despite the obvious novelty of watching one of Hollywood's most recognizable actors behind a piano, the music is anything but a celebrity vanity project. Named after his mother's longtime friend and Bridge partner, his band is formidable, and Goldblum himself is a legitimate musician with an evident affection for jazz and the Great American Songbook. The group has released multiple albums through Decca Records, most recently Night Blooms in June.
Goldblum has been performing jazz with the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra for roughly three decades, and despite the obvious novelty of watching one of Hollywood's most recognizable actors behind a piano, the music is anything but a celebrity vanity project. Named after his mother's longtime friend and Bridge partner, his band is formidable, and Goldblum himself is a legitimate musician with an evident affection for jazz and the Great American Songbook. The group has released multiple albums through Decca Records, most recently Night Blooms in June.
Sunday's performance was part of Goldblum's Night Blooms World Tour, but San Diego received something considerably grander than the standard touring show: the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra was surrounded by the San Diego Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Stuart Chafetz. And make no mistake, the Symphony was one of the stars of the evening.
The additional strings, brass and orchestral color transformed arrangements that could comfortably live inside an intimate jazz club into something cinematic and sweeping enough to fill the waterfront. The contrast worked beautifully. Goldblum and his band supplied the looseness and swing; the San Diego Symphony supplied scale, drama and occasionally sheer sonic grandeur.
Goldblum opened with "Wonderful," Stephen Schwartz's song from Wicked, a particularly fitting entrance following his turn as the Wizard in the blockbuster film adaptation. It quickly became apparent that he wasn't interested in simply reproducing songs from his records.
Instead, Goldblum unveiled a hilariously specific musical tribute to San Diego, working local landmarks and institutions into the lyrics. The San Diego Zoo made the cut. So did SeaWorld and the Padres. Somehow, even the notoriously unglamorous Tijuana River sewage crisis found its way into a Jeff Goldblum jazz number. It was ridiculous, impressively tailored to the city and very funny.
That sense that the performance existed specifically for the people sitting in front of him carried through the night. Goldblum repeatedly stopped to engage audience members and musicians, sometimes appearing almost more interested in the conversation than whatever was supposed to happen next. The detours were part of the point.
The additional strings, brass and orchestral color transformed arrangements that could comfortably live inside an intimate jazz club into something cinematic and sweeping enough to fill the waterfront. The contrast worked beautifully. Goldblum and his band supplied the looseness and swing; the San Diego Symphony supplied scale, drama and occasionally sheer sonic grandeur.
Goldblum opened with "Wonderful," Stephen Schwartz's song from Wicked, a particularly fitting entrance following his turn as the Wizard in the blockbuster film adaptation. It quickly became apparent that he wasn't interested in simply reproducing songs from his records.
Instead, Goldblum unveiled a hilariously specific musical tribute to San Diego, working local landmarks and institutions into the lyrics. The San Diego Zoo made the cut. So did SeaWorld and the Padres. Somehow, even the notoriously unglamorous Tijuana River sewage crisis found its way into a Jeff Goldblum jazz number. It was ridiculous, impressively tailored to the city and very funny.
That sense that the performance existed specifically for the people sitting in front of him carried through the night. Goldblum repeatedly stopped to engage audience members and musicians, sometimes appearing almost more interested in the conversation than whatever was supposed to happen next. The detours were part of the point.
Broadway performer Khailah Johnson, whose credits include the hit musical & Juliet, joined the group and proved an ideal counterweight to Goldblum's free-associative energy. She brought a rich, commanding vocal presence to "Misty," followed by Billie Eilish's James Bond theme "No Time to Die" and a playful rendition of "If I Only Had a Brain" from The Wizard of Oz. The sequence reflects material Goldblum has been performing during the current tour, where Johnson has been among his featured vocalists.
The first half eventually landed on Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing," sending the crowd into intermission with the kind of buoyancy perfectly suited to a warm August night beside the water.
If Goldblum was the master of ceremonies, the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra provided the musical muscle underneath all that charisma. The touring ensemble includes saxophonist Scott Gilman, guitarist John Storie and organist Joe Bagg, alongside bassist Alex Frank and drummer Kenny Elliott. Gilman's saxophone work was particularly electrifying Sunday, while Storie and Bagg repeatedly emerged from the arrangements with performances that reminded the audience just how serious the musicianship underneath this deliberately unserious show really is.
Goldblum deserves credit for something else, too: he doesn't surround himself with excellent musicians merely to make himself look better. He visibly delights in them.
He introduced players, interacted with them, cheered them on, and ceded the spotlight freely. That generosity extended to the San Diego Symphony, whose musicians weren't treated like anonymous accompaniment but like collaborators in the strange little universe Goldblum had constructed for the evening.
After intermission came "As Time Goes By," forever associated with Dooley Wilson's Sam in the 1942 classic Casablanca. Under the open sky at The Shell, with the orchestra behind it and San Diego Bay surrounding the venue, the song's nostalgic pull felt almost absurdly well matched to the setting.
Then came one of the night's most instantly recognizable instrumental moments: "Soul Bossa Nova," Quincy Jones' exuberant 1962 composition later immortalized for another generation as the unmistakable theme associated with Austin Powers. Goldblum's current orchestral show has incorporated the piece into its second half, where its kitschy swagger fits his sensibility almost suspiciously well.
"Sentimental Man," another Wicked selection, brought the evening back into Goldblum's newest chapter before Johnson returned for a wonderfully unexpected turn through Taylor Swift's "Lover." It shouldn't necessarily make sense in the middle of a jazz-and-symphony program built around standards and movie music. Somehow it did. Goldblum's band has been reworking "Lover" for several years, including a recorded version featuring Haley Reinhart, and its transformation into something loungey and sophisticated demonstrated how comfortably this group moves between generations of popular music.
Johnson also joined the ensemble for "Mean to Me," the 1929 Fred E. Ahlert and Roy Turk standard that has been interpreted by generations of jazz singers, including Billie Holiday. Again, the appeal wasn't nostalgia for nostalgia's sake. The arrangements made nearly century-old material coexist comfortably with Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder, Broadway and Quincy Jones.
The first half eventually landed on Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing," sending the crowd into intermission with the kind of buoyancy perfectly suited to a warm August night beside the water.
If Goldblum was the master of ceremonies, the Mildred Snitzer Orchestra provided the musical muscle underneath all that charisma. The touring ensemble includes saxophonist Scott Gilman, guitarist John Storie and organist Joe Bagg, alongside bassist Alex Frank and drummer Kenny Elliott. Gilman's saxophone work was particularly electrifying Sunday, while Storie and Bagg repeatedly emerged from the arrangements with performances that reminded the audience just how serious the musicianship underneath this deliberately unserious show really is.
Goldblum deserves credit for something else, too: he doesn't surround himself with excellent musicians merely to make himself look better. He visibly delights in them.
He introduced players, interacted with them, cheered them on, and ceded the spotlight freely. That generosity extended to the San Diego Symphony, whose musicians weren't treated like anonymous accompaniment but like collaborators in the strange little universe Goldblum had constructed for the evening.
After intermission came "As Time Goes By," forever associated with Dooley Wilson's Sam in the 1942 classic Casablanca. Under the open sky at The Shell, with the orchestra behind it and San Diego Bay surrounding the venue, the song's nostalgic pull felt almost absurdly well matched to the setting.
Then came one of the night's most instantly recognizable instrumental moments: "Soul Bossa Nova," Quincy Jones' exuberant 1962 composition later immortalized for another generation as the unmistakable theme associated with Austin Powers. Goldblum's current orchestral show has incorporated the piece into its second half, where its kitschy swagger fits his sensibility almost suspiciously well.
"Sentimental Man," another Wicked selection, brought the evening back into Goldblum's newest chapter before Johnson returned for a wonderfully unexpected turn through Taylor Swift's "Lover." It shouldn't necessarily make sense in the middle of a jazz-and-symphony program built around standards and movie music. Somehow it did. Goldblum's band has been reworking "Lover" for several years, including a recorded version featuring Haley Reinhart, and its transformation into something loungey and sophisticated demonstrated how comfortably this group moves between generations of popular music.
Johnson also joined the ensemble for "Mean to Me," the 1929 Fred E. Ahlert and Roy Turk standard that has been interpreted by generations of jazz singers, including Billie Holiday. Again, the appeal wasn't nostalgia for nostalgia's sake. The arrangements made nearly century-old material coexist comfortably with Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder, Broadway and Quincy Jones.
That eclecticism is essentially the Goldblum proposition. At 73, he seems almost bizarrely timeless. He remains instantly recognizable as the eccentric screen presence audiences have watched for decades, yet nothing about Sunday's performance felt like a celebrity trading on nostalgia. If anything, his age seems almost beside the point. Goldblum bounds through the evening with the curiosity, mischievousness and occasionally chaotic enthusiasm of someone who still appears genuinely delighted that he gets to do this.
And perhaps that's why the show works. There is very little cynicism in a Jeff Goldblum concert. He isn't pretending jazz is cool. He isn't pretending he is cool. He simply appears to think music, people, words, trivia, movies and unexpected conversations are all enormously interesting, and for a couple of hours he invites several thousand strangers to share his enthusiasm.
The setting made that invitation nearly impossible to resist. The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park remains one of San Diego's great civic achievements, an architectural landmark perched at the edge of downtown with the skyline rising behind it and San Diego Bay wrapping around the surrounding park. Opened in 2021 as the San Diego Symphony's permanent outdoor home, it is the sort of venue that can occasionally make you forget to look at the stage.
Sunday was one of those nights when everything about it worked. The air was warm without being oppressive. Boats moved across the bay beyond the venue. Downtown shimmered nearby. The sound was pristine, as it so consistently is at The Shell, allowing both the intimacy of Goldblum's piano and the full force of the San Diego Symphony to reach the lawn without losing definition. There are more famous outdoor concert venues in America. There may not be many more beautiful.
San Diegans can become strangely accustomed to extraordinary scenery, but sitting beneath The Shell on a late-August evening with a world-class orchestra playing against the backdrop of the bay is a reminder that this city possesses something genuinely special. It is difficult to imagine Goldblum's peculiar mixture of jazz, Broadway, Hollywood, comedy and conversation finding a more appropriate home.
And perhaps that's why the show works. There is very little cynicism in a Jeff Goldblum concert. He isn't pretending jazz is cool. He isn't pretending he is cool. He simply appears to think music, people, words, trivia, movies and unexpected conversations are all enormously interesting, and for a couple of hours he invites several thousand strangers to share his enthusiasm.
The setting made that invitation nearly impossible to resist. The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park remains one of San Diego's great civic achievements, an architectural landmark perched at the edge of downtown with the skyline rising behind it and San Diego Bay wrapping around the surrounding park. Opened in 2021 as the San Diego Symphony's permanent outdoor home, it is the sort of venue that can occasionally make you forget to look at the stage.
Sunday was one of those nights when everything about it worked. The air was warm without being oppressive. Boats moved across the bay beyond the venue. Downtown shimmered nearby. The sound was pristine, as it so consistently is at The Shell, allowing both the intimacy of Goldblum's piano and the full force of the San Diego Symphony to reach the lawn without losing definition. There are more famous outdoor concert venues in America. There may not be many more beautiful.
San Diegans can become strangely accustomed to extraordinary scenery, but sitting beneath The Shell on a late-August evening with a world-class orchestra playing against the backdrop of the bay is a reminder that this city possesses something genuinely special. It is difficult to imagine Goldblum's peculiar mixture of jazz, Broadway, Hollywood, comedy and conversation finding a more appropriate home.
The evening's loveliest surprise came near the end, when Goldblum remained at the piano alone for “Over the Rainbow.” Rather than treating one of the most familiar songs in American music as a predictable sentimental finale, he performed an unusual, delicate arrangement composed by Mildred Snitzer Orchestra guitarist John Storie and Storie's father, who happened to be sitting in the audience that night. Goldblum made a point of acknowledging him from the stage, turning an already intimate performance into one of those wonderfully specific moments that could only have happened at this particular show.
But Goldblum wasn't quite ready to send San Diego quietly into the night. He welcomed Khailah Johnson and conductor Stuart Chafetz back to the stage for an exuberant encore of Ray Charles' “What'd I Say,” abruptly shifting the mood from wistful to joyous and sending the evening out on a burst of rhythm and energy. Afterward, Goldblum lingered rather than simply disappearing backstage, thanking the audience and introducing the musicians who had shared the evening with him before offering a characteristically eloquent, vocabulary-rich farewell. Even his goodbye felt unmistakably Goldblum: gracious, slightly idiosyncratic, unusually articulate and delivered with the sense that he was genuinely reluctant for this strange and delightful little gathering on San Diego Bay to end.
By the conclusion, it was difficult to decide exactly what we'd attended. A jazz concert? A symphony performance? Cabaret? Comedy? Broadway revue? Celebrity talk show? Yes.
Jeff Goldblum may be the name on the ticket, but Sunday's performance succeeded because it never really became The Jeff Goldblum Show. The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra was outstanding. Khailah Johnson was sensational. The San Diego Symphony was magnificent. And Goldblum seemed happiest functioning as the connective tissue between all of them, occasionally sitting at the piano but just as often grinning, talking, listening and enthusiastically directing our attention toward someone else. The result was charming without becoming corny, polished without feeling rehearsed to death and musically accomplished without taking itself too seriously.
On a warm Sunday night beside San Diego Bay, Jeff Goldblum and a stage full of extraordinary musicians gave San Diego something increasingly rare: a concert that was simply, unapologetically fun.
And we got to watch it at one of the most magnificent concert venues anywhere, one we're fortunate enough to call our own right here in America's Finest City.
Jeff Goldblum may be the name on the ticket, but Sunday's performance succeeded because it never really became The Jeff Goldblum Show. The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra was outstanding. Khailah Johnson was sensational. The San Diego Symphony was magnificent. And Goldblum seemed happiest functioning as the connective tissue between all of them, occasionally sitting at the piano but just as often grinning, talking, listening and enthusiastically directing our attention toward someone else. The result was charming without becoming corny, polished without feeling rehearsed to death and musically accomplished without taking itself too seriously.
On a warm Sunday night beside San Diego Bay, Jeff Goldblum and a stage full of extraordinary musicians gave San Diego something increasingly rare: a concert that was simply, unapologetically fun.
And we got to watch it at one of the most magnificent concert venues anywhere, one we're fortunate enough to call our own right here in America's Finest City.
Originally published on August 24, 2026.
