Five Firsts: Terry Gordon of the Terry Gordon Quintet…

NAME: Terry Gordon
BAND AFFILIATION: Terry Gordon Quintet, Alex Torres y Su Orquesta, Arch Stanton Quartet, Keith Pray’s Big Soul Ensemble, Empire Jazz Orchestra, Brass-O-Mania
INSTRUMENT: trumpet, flugelhorn

1. THE FIRST ALBUM I EVER BOUGHT WAS … Chuck Mangione’s “Alive!”

2. THE FIRST CONCERT THAT I EVER SAW WAS … I have always remembered the first time I heard the Rushford Town Band when I was in grade school and how that planted a seed in my mind that I wanted to play music.

3. THE FIRST MUSICAL INSTRUMENT I EVER OWNED OR PLAYED WAS … My dad’s old cornet, which was a Gladiator by H.N. White Co. (and I still have it!)

4. THE FIRST SONG THAT I EVER PERFORMED IN PUBLIC WAS … My first public performance was with my elementary school band. I don’t remember what was on the program.

5. THE FIRST BAND I WAS EVER IN WAS … I got started down the jazz path in high school and just after with my own group, Brass Plus, as well as with a dixieland band called “Just Whittlin’ Dixie,” which was a part of the Rushford Town Band. The first band I was a part of that did paying gigs was a big band called the Clubmen.

Trumpeter Terry Gordon is obviously an in-demand musician around Nippertown. Yesterday, he was playing with Alex Torres & His Latin Orchestra at the Empire State Plaza’s Fabulous Fourth Festivities. At 8pm tonight, he’s playing with Keith Pray’s Big Soul Ensemble at the Van Dyck in Schenectady. Admission is free. At 7pm on Wednesday he leads the Terry Gordon Quintet at the Bethlehem Public Library’s free Evenings On the Green concert series. The quintet is also in action at the Otesaga Resort Hotel in Cooperstown at 9pm on Friday.