Brandon Woody
Kristan thinks many would perceive this Baltimore maker as a jazz musician. But what Kristan found interesting while she was talking to this musician is that he doesn't define his music as jazz. He actually doesn't put a definition towards his musical craft. It is Brandon Woody's music, his craft, his passion, his story, his life. He grew up in the streets of Baltimore and grew a love for one of Kristan's favorite instruments, the trumpet, He has performed brass with local legends of the genre like Eric Kennedy and Jeff Reed, as well as DIY rappers with Abdu Ali and Al Rogers Jr. Lead open mic nights at the Motor House. He is an alum of Peabody Preparatory’s Tuned-In Program and the Brubeck Institute in California. He is a highly talented, expressive instrumentalist who brings a fiery flair to every set, he shares with Kristan the struggles he went through to get to where he is today.
Photo Credit: Devin Allen
Photo Credit: Megan Elyse
"So my craft is music, I am a creator, I'm a composer, a bandleader. Those are like the main things that I'm focusing on but play the trumpet. I've been playing for about 15 years and how I got into it. I used to play the drums, I used to bang on pots. First, I used to bang on pots and pans when I was growing up. My mom and dad were still together and then I went to elementary school, the first instrument that I wanted to play was the drums. I had focused on that instrument for a whole year and I felt like by the end of the school year, I still didn't get anywhere on the instrument. I didn't really progress. I didn't see any progress. So I had this talent competition...I had this music teacher in elementary school named Mr. Freeman, and he said, you know, go ahead, do the talent competition, like even helped me out, you know, practice on some music for the talent competition. So I did it. And then I just did awful, did an awful job, and then there was like this older kid that ended the whole talent competition that also played drums, and he won. So wow, that broke my heart. I was like, how's that? Oh my gosh, not even just that he won. I was definitely happy for him. But the fact that I did, I thought in my mind that I did a terrible job in front of hundreds of people in my elementary school at such a young age. I was like six, seven years old. I just stopped playing the drums and then took a summer off of music in general. Just like playing a lot outside and then that September, whatever year that was that I went back to elementary school probably like third grade. I was probably eight years old. I had the choice to pick between saxophone and trumpet. still wanted to, you know, be involved in music. I think the main thing that made me do that was because last year when I was playing drums, I was getting butterflies, like, you know, five minutes before band rehearsal, I would always get these butterflies in my stomach. I didn't even know what they were. But just like the kind of nervous, kind of passion like really hard passion feeling of like, something that you are just getting into, but you really love it and you still don't even know what it is. Right? So I still had those butterflies next year. So I was like, oh, yeah, definitely got to still make music and trumpet just had fewer keys on it. A trumpet only has three vowels. The saxophone has endless keys. So I just thought it would be easier to play trumpet, honestly. And it wasn't, definitely wasn't, I couldn't take the instrument home, I couldn't, I couldn't read the instrument and take it home until I made a sound on it in school. So I would come in early every day for like two whole weeks trying to make a sound on the horn and I finally made a sound on the horn after two weeks and he allowed me to take it home. I lived in apartments, you know, all my life for you know, a lot of my life, especially after I started playing the trumpet because I was just living with my mom and my brother. My mom and dad split up like a little bit before that. But, uh, you know, people in apartments are, you know, they're not trying to hear a young kid playing the trumpet when they got whatever they got, not knowing that, like, you know, these hours that I'm putting in these apartments are really changing and affect my life for the, for the better. It was crazy, because anytime that I would, this was definitely an example of my mom's love, advocacy, and hard work, and strength, as a single mom as a single black mom in Baltimore. You know, anytime somebody in an apartment building, you know, would knock on the door, whatever, she would just curse them out. You know? And I would keep practicing," said Brandon Woody.
Photo Credit: Megan Elyse
Brandon Woody grew up in the streets of Baltimore with his brother and single mother. Brandon’s mother worked hard to keep her son’s dreams afloat from taking him to school programs to telling the neighbors off when they complained about Brandon’s trumpet playing in their apartment complex.
“My mom took me to all of the music programs. She got me involved in Eubie Blake, which was one of my first summer programs. That was my first summer program involving jazz and music outside of black school. So, you know, we have all this free time in the summertime. And I was so curious, you know, when you're young your brain is like a sponge. So I had met this dude, one of my first mentors. It's crazy, because we have the same birthday, I was thinking like, yeah, we have the same birthday. This is like a guardian, a guardian angel, my life. This was the first time that I was really exposed to lots of the history of jazz music and just black music in general. And like, the history of music and Baltimore, so he literally changed my life. He got me more curious. After that summer, I was searching up everything. You know, I don't even know if I had a computer yet. But I definitely didn't. I didn't have a computer or phone. But I was searching everything trying to go to shows and everything right after that. Then I went to lots of summer programs. I just really wanted to make it a point that my mom really started it. My mom got it started for me and it wasn't like she was forcing me to practice or anything. But when it came to needing some money or some funding, whatever, I need to be driven out an hour or two hours to get wherever I need to be flown out to get wherever, you know, especially in those beginning years, and even up to now she has always helped me out. Even like my first international tour when I went out with Solange, when I had to go to Hamburg, Germany, and only had like, four days notice that I had to get a passport in two days. My mom put up $100 for that and my brother put up $100 and I had 50. And we went, I made it happen, you know?” said Brandon.
Kristan learned more about Brandon’s mentors, musicians he looked up to, his time in school, his time performing in shows across the globe and so much more.
To learn more about Brandon’s music his website and Instagram.