Brad Goode

Brad Goode, a multi-instrumentalist equally at home on trumpet, bass, and drums, came into the world in Chicago in 1963. Violin studies began for him at age four, giving way seven years later to guitar and cornet. By the point he finished high school he was already working professional engagements on bass and trumpet. He completed his undergraduate work at the University of Kentucky in 1985 after studying trumpet with Vince DiMartino, then earned a master’s degree from DePaul University in 1987 following double-bass instruction with Larry Gray. Although his résumé includes paid work on bass and drums, Goode’s reputation rests chiefly on trumpet, where he has fronted his own jazz groups and performed alongside Red Rodney, Jack DeJohnette, Al Cohn, Curtis Fuller, Eddie Harris, Frank Morgan, and many additional artists. Teaching posts have taken him to the American Conservatory of Music, Cuyahoga Community College, the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, and the University of Colorado at Boulder. His earliest recordings, Shock of the New on Delmark in 1989 and Brad Goode on Sunlight in 1995, favor a straight-ahead post-bop approach. That direction continued with the standards-oriented Toy Trumpet and By Myself, both issued by Steeplechase in 2001, then Hypnotic Suggestion in 2006, Nature Boy in 2007, and Tight Like This in 2010, all on Delmark. A broader palette emerged on the 2008 Origin release Polytonal Dance Party, which incorporated fusion and electronic textures. Goode revisited that forward-looking fusion outlook with Chicago Red, also on Origin, in 2013. The following year he issued the expansive, post-bop album Montezuma, which added Latin accents.