Colorado is home to several superb jazz trumpeters. Ron Miles, Hugh Ragin, Greg Gisbert and Brad Goode are often in demand nationally and have collectively played with the finest creative musicians around. They and a handful of other locals could just as easily make music in New York or any number of European cities. But it’s in the Denver area where they each see to their day-to-day lives.
“Don’t you think this is a nice place to live?” asks Goode, who was born in Chicago and made his living there for several years before accepting a position at CU-Boulder in 2004. And, according to Goode, it’s a rare thing when a trumpeter can make a living anywhere strictly as a performer.
“Unless you’re some great star, I don’t think you can,” he says. “In Chicago, I was playing more gigs than any other trumpet player I’d heard of, and it was still difficult for my wife and I to survive.
“Most of us (jazz musicians) do this for the love of it.”
If anything, Goode is happy with the opportunities to perform in Denver/Boulder venues.
“It’s a very busy and active jazz scene, especially when you compare it to what’s going on in other cities this size in the country. There aren’t a lot of places that are better.
“Even in some bigger cities, some of the venues where musicians have the opportunity to play aren’t really listening rooms. Musicians have to play to big, drunken parties. There’s a lot of interest in this area in supporting the arts.”
Goode drives his point home by listing various gigs he has lined up in the next few weeks, including an appearance with the inimitable guitarist Dale Bruning and fine saxophonist
Peter Sommer on Aug. 20 at the Longmont Jazz Festival, headlining Aug. 23-25 at the increasingly visible Back Room club, and as part of the Three Trumpets group (Gisbert and Bob Montgomery are the other two) Aug. 26 at Dazzle.
In addition to the steady stream of live performances and teaching, Goode has a new CD on the legendary Chicago-
based record label Delmark. “Hypnotic Suggestion” is an appropriate showcase for Goode’s vocabulary of guttural moans and slurs, as well as more stratospheric expressions. He does well by Monk (a spirited “Bemsha Swing”), but he’s more uninhibited on his own compositions, which have the tendency to stick with you.
Goode is a well-rounded trumpeter, and “Hypnotic Suggestion” is a telling, well-rounded disc that hints at his potential to be one of the truly creative leaders in jazz.
Goode recorded the disc in Chicago. Is there something unique to that environment?
“There is a way of playing in Chicago that is a little different, inside and outside at the same time. It blurs the line of straight-ahead jazz and the avant-garde,” Goode says.
“But the Chicago musicians (on the disc) are close friends I’ve played with for years, and you develop a rapport and trust. There’s a kind of daring approach to playing that we take on there, and we can do that because we know and trust each other.
“And here in Colorado, I’m playing that way more and more with my friends that get to know me.”
Brad Goode plays with the Dale Bruning/Peter Sommer Quintet, 1:45 p.m. Aug. 20, in a free concert at Longmont’s Roosevelt Park Pavilion, Longs Peak Avenue and Coffman Street. Find our more at longmontjazz.org.
More gigs
Tonight, it’s saxophonist Nelson Rangell returning to his classic jazz roots at Jazz@Jacks, while the Denver Jazz Quartet plays on the patio at Gabriel’s Restaurant in Sedalia … Swedish singer Elin specializes in Brazilian sounds and appears Friday at Dazzle … There’s a benefit concert for Colorado’s Creative Music Works with Wendy Fopeano, Fred Hess, Marc Sabatella and more Aug. 20 at Dazzle … Guitarist George Benson, who has run the gamut from hard-edged Miles Davis collaborator to smooth pop star, is joined by vocalist Al Jarreau on Aug. 20 at CityLights Pavilion.
Bret Saunders’ column on jazz appears every other Sunday in A&E. Saunders is host of the “KBCO Morning Show,” 5:30-10 a.m. weekdays at 97.3-FM. His e-mail address is bret_saunders@hotmail.com.
