Cornet Chop Suey Offers High Energy Performance

When trombonist Brett Stamps and the other members of jazz group Cornet Chop Suey gather for a gig, the audience is in for a real treat.

"It’s very high energy," Stamps said. "Everybody is very intense about playing, and I think that’s the fun of it. From the minute you start, everybody’s going at it full steam ahead. And it’s a real cast of characters. It’s probably one of the more unique groups of musicians I’ve worked with."

The seven-member group, named for a Louis Armstrong song, will play 2-5 p.m. Sunday at the, near West Port Plaza in Maryland Heights. In addition to Stamps, the group features bass player Jay Hungerford, pianist Paul Reed, trumpet player and musical director Brian Casserly, cornet player Tom Tucker, Jerry Epperson on reeds and drummer John Gillick. The concert is sponsored by the St. Louis Jazz Club.

"I enjoy the way they deliver the tunes," said Harry Borchardt, communications chair for the St. Louis Jazz Club. "They don’t just play them. By that, I mean you can really feel they are putting something forward into it. They have an effervescent spirit about them."

Stamps, a music professor and the Director of Jazz Activities at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), has been with the group four years. He said listeners can expect a wide-ranging performance Sunday.

"The group is really pretty eclectic," he said. "It kind of specializes in traditional jazz, which would be jazz of the ‘20s--hot jazz, and swing-era jazz from the 1930s. But there’s also some different things thrown in that this group plays."

For instance, they play a version of Buddy Rich’s big band recording of "West Side Story," plus the theme from "Rocky."

"There’s a real mix of materials," Stamps said. "But mostly it’s geared toward older style jazz material."

The playlist will likely include a medley of Henry Mancini’s detective show themes, plus traditional jazz takes on "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" and "Tiger Rag."

The group is currently working on new material, with a goal of recording a new CD in a couple of months. For Sunday’s performance, the group will include one to two sets of material new to Cornet Chop Suey as part of the overall three sets.

"We have eight to nine sets of music that we normally play, so we’re constantly adding to that," he said. "What we want to do in this concert is feature some of the new things that haven’t been recorded yet."

Although Stamps is one of the newer members of Cornet Chop Suey, he’s been playing the trombone since childhood. The instrument’s initial appeal was its apparent simplicity.

"I was pretty drawn to the saxophone, but it looked pretty complicated with all those buttons to push, and it had a hefty price tag," he said. "The neighbor next door, a big kid who I admired, played the trombone. I started looking and thought, ‘This looks easy,' which was dumb, but I didn’t know any better back then. So I kind of picked it because it looked like, ‘Oh, I can figure this out.’"

That was fifth grade, but the trombone wasn’t as easy as it appeared.

"I was pretty good about figuring out where the sounds lay on the horn, not necessarily reading music," he said. "But for the first two years, I was kind of hit or miss. I would lie about how much I practiced, and kind of puttered around."

The ranking system in junior high changed that.

When trombones, auditioned, I was ninth out of nine trombones, Stamps said. "I decided, ‘Wait a minute, I don’t want to be ninth, so I better start practicing.’ I started practicing my third trombone part every night after dinner, and went from ninth to first. From that point on, I’ve been pretty consistent about playing the horn. It really kind of took off."

Stamps didn’t know about jazz until high school, when the band director started a jazz band.

"When I started playing (jazz), I really enjoyed that," he said. "I liked improvising. And we were listening to things like Count Basie, and Maynard Ferguson, and Buddy Rich. I enjoyed listening to that music--a lot--and trying to play it."

Now, a few years down the road, jazz still has a hold on Stamps.

"The older you get, the more overwhelming it is to try and play it," he said. "Because you become aware of how many, just amazing, musicians are out there in the world, how many incredible combinations of performance styles have blended into making the music, and just how daunting it is to try and match the level of some of the things you hear. The more I learn about it, the more I realize (what) I don’t know and may never be able to achieve. It’s been a great, lifelong learning passion. The more I do it, the more I discover that’s out there. And there’s fresh and new things being presented every day, it seems like."

Over the years, Stamps has had the chance to meet some of the jazz greats, such as Duke Ellington and Count Basie. He toured with the Stan Kenton Jazz Orchestra and met bassist Stanley Clarke recently when Clarke taught a master class for SIUE jazz students.

"It’s amazing how many people you touch--you either meet, or come across, or interact with--over the course of a career," he said.

Stamps has released several CDs, including his own, as well as also recordings made by Cornet Chop Suey. In addition to performing locally, Cornet Chop Suey also tours occasionally, playing at jazz festivals across the country. The appeal of playing for a live audience never gets old.

"It has a lot to do with the crowd reaction," he said. "The people we play for really appreciate the music we play, and they let you know it. It’s fun to have that connection going on."

Tickets for Sunday’s concert are $12 for members of the St. Louis Jazz Club, $17 for nonmembers. Students with a valid ID can get in free.

For more information about Cornet Chop Suey, see their web site. 

Take Interstate 70 east toward St. Louis. Take exit 232A-232B to merge onto Interstate 270 south toward Memphis. Take exit 16A for Page Avenue and merge onto Missouri Highway 364/Page Avenue east.

Take the Westport Plaza Drive exit and merge onto Lackland Road. Lackland turns left and becomes Craigshire Road. The Doubletree Hotel, 1973 Craigshire, will be on the right. It is approximately a 35-minute drive from Wentzville.