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Brad Goode (full name: Bradley Mitchell Goode) is an American jazz trumpeter and bassist born on October 10, 1963 in Chicago, Illinois. He began playing violin at age 4, guitar at age 8, and cornet at age 10. At 14, his family moved to East Lansing, Michigan, where he played in the bands and orchestra at East Lansing High School.

In 1978, he attended Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, where he met and studied with Cat Anderson, the great Ellingtonian trumpet soloist. Cat was a special person, and was very encouraging to Brad. Upon returning home, he began to scour the record stores for jazz recordings. He developed a collection of bebop and free jazz, and spent hours each day listening to Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, Dizzy Gillespie, Don Cherry, Red Rodney, John Coltrane, Clifford Brown and other greats. He didn't really transcribe the solos, but I played along with the records, fantasizing that I was actually playing in the bands.

His neighbor, Ed Beerman, had formerly worked for Dizzy's DeeGee record label, and took Brad to meet and hang out with his hero. Dizzy took one look at Brad and immediately called out "Little Red Rodney!" (a popular bebop trumpeter that also had red hair like Brad). After hearing Dizzy play live, Brad knew he wanted to become a jazz musician.

Dick Ott, a local vibist, gave Brad his first professional jazz gig when he was 15 years old. Suddenly, he found myself in the company of real pros, and it was very exciting. Over the next several years, he received great mentoring from Detroit area musicians; especially from pianist Eddie Russ and multi-instrumentalist Sherm Mitchell. Brad began spending most evenings driving around the state of Michigan for gigs with them, and the opportunity to learn by apprenticeship.

In 1981, Brad began his college career at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, studying trumpet privately with the great trumpeter Vincent DiMartino. Brad led a Fusion group called "Sun of Rif" in Lexington during these years. Before graduating in 1985, he had already begun traveling to Louisville, Cincinnati, Detroit and Chicago for jazz gigs.

In the summers of 1984 and 1985, Brad had the opportunity to play in the Aspen Jazz Ensemble, directed by Ted Piltzecker, where he had met and befriended a then-13-year-old alto playing phenom named Chris Potter, and the two spent long hours practicing, gigging and jamming. In 1985, Brad actually acted as Chris's legal guardian for a summer in order to insure that he could play gigs with Brad in establishments after hours that only served alcohol.

Brad began playing bass at 15. In 1985, he began graduate bass studies at DePaul University in Chicago. During this time in grad school, Brad was really much more interested in hanging out at clubs and jam sessions than in doing homework. He enjoyed meeting the wonderful musicians of the Chicago jazz scene and felt a great affinity for the way they played. The older musicians were unbelievably generous with their time and knowledge, and the younger musicians seemed serious and passionate about playing. He felt he had found home, certainly the right place to learn and perform jazz. His mentors were; Von Freeman, Eddie Johnson, Eddie DeHaas, Jodie Christian, Eddie Harris, Ira Sullivan, Lin Halliday, Barrett Deems and Red Rodney. Brad claims to owe his jazz career to these people.

In Chicago, he was often afforded the opportunity to play in house bands, teamed in the front line with traveling jazz greats.