At the age of eight, Andrew heard the sounds of street jazz musicians and soon he found himself holding a cornet on Christmas morning. In a matter of months, Andrew was performing regularly in front of supportive crowds at his family’s local church. From that moment on, Andrew found his life long passion of making music...“I still remember the magic of having that old cornet. There was something about it that was just so mesmerizing to me. I remember opening the case just to look at it and knowing that it was always something very special.”
Andrew stayed with Blast until 2008, in which time he joined the band of Reality TV’s winner of “The Entertainer”, Delisco. This led him over to Macau, China for the first time as Delisco’s trumpet player on the world famous Bellini Lounge stage. After his return, Andrew moved to Las Vegas, where he played with variety acts and continued his pursuit of performing his original work. In 2009, Delisco went back over to Macau’s Bellini stage and brought Andrew along side as his musical director. The latest run in Macau afforded Andrew many opportunity’s to explore new directions and concepts for his music and voice.
Before he started his touring career, Andrew studied at the University of Arizona, under the close guidance of Eastman Graduate, Professor Edward Reid. While living in Tucson, he was also very sought after as a commercial musician for his versatility in the jazz and classical idioms. During the summers of his college career, he never stopped performing, and during that time he found himself playing in the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps as one of their lead soprano soloists. The following year, he spent his summer working at the Disneyland Resort with the “All American College Band”. Both of these experiences allowed Andrew to grow not just as a musician and educator, but also as an individual.
“Performing in the College Band was probably, to this day, the hardest gig I have ever done. Eight hours solid of playing lead trumpet every day in the sun never gets easy. But that said, it was the best musical and growth experience I’ve ever had. I met and studied with some of the best musicians in the recording industry and I wouldn’t have traded the whole experience for the world.”
With all of his performance and career pointing in the direction of a jazz upbringing, you would never guess that Andrew was actually classically trained and his childhood dreams up until high school were actually to play in a symphony.
“The first real moment I knew I wanted to be a professional musician was when I twelve. I went to the Phoenix Symphony pops concert and Doc Severinson was the guest soloist and conductor. The entire night was surreal to me and then having the opportunity to meet Doc after the show just sealed it for me. I was hooked...”
From early on Andrew had sucess in his local town of Phoenix, Arizona winning the local and state festivals as a classical trumpet player throughout his acacemic years until 2000 when he found himself in the Phoenix Symphony Youth Orchestra.
“The other trumpet player next to me was really into playing jazz, and specifically lead trumpet ‘high note’ jazz” We would go outside the building on our breaks and play as loud and as high as we could always trying to hit a new note every week. Eventually when it got too cold to play outside, the flute and violin players in front of us had to suffer the screaming decibals of two obnoxious guys playing the highest cat-scratching sounds they could possibly make. I’m surprised they spoke to us after all that musical slaughtering.”
That experience led Andrew to audition for a scholarship to Berklee College of Music the following summer as a lead trumpet player in the Berklee Summer Program’s top jazz band. Studying under the legendary Lin Biviano, Andrew found his new calling as a jazz trumpet player. A year later, Andrew auditioned for the National High School Grammy Band and had the opportunity to perform on the Red Carpet at the 2002 Grammy Awards.
With his love for music, and relentless drive to continue to improve and grow, Andrew is continuing his passion for creating great music and art for everyone to take part in and share.
“I am so grateful to everyone who has inspired me and supported me throughout my life. My only wish is to live my life giving that gift to more people. Music is so unique and powerfully transforming, and I live for learning and sharing its mysteries...”
