Chris Gordon: Trumpet, Arranger
Founding member of The Tuscaloosa Horns, Chris is an active educator, composer, arranger, songwriter, performer, and author. Having been with the horns since 1979, he has played, written, and/or produced over 300 advertisements, industrial film scores, albums, and big band charts. A staff writer for Kendor Music, Inc. specializing in young jazz ensemble works with flexible instrumentation, his music is sold and performed all over the world. As an author of two college texts, Form and Content in Commercial Music - Ardsley House Publishers, New York, NY 1992, and Music: The New Curriculum, Stipes Publishers, Ltd., Champaign, Il, 1994, his publications are used by institutions all over the United States and United Kingdom. As a former Duke Ellington Award winner from the Eastman School of Music's Arranger's program, Chris has written arrangements and compositions for orchestra, studio orchestra, and jazz ensemble that maybe found in the music libraries of many institutions of higher learning. He is the founding president of Commercial Music Educators and is the over or CO-owner of two companies - Chris Gordon Productions, L.L.C., which specializes in staged entertainment for theme parks, and Arts Curriculum Analysts, an educational consulting service to colleges and local school systems, including the City of Chicago Public Schools, the City of Birmingham Public Schools, and the Edison Project in New York. As a performer, he is a former "Traveling Artist" for the Mississippi Arts Council and for the past 20 years he has performed with various artists, including: The Temptations, The 4 Tops, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Frankie Valli, The OJay's, B.J. Thomas, Bob Hope, Toni Tennille, Joan Rivers, the Dorsey Brothers Band, and the Broadway touring company's production of "Grease" starring Debbie Gibson. Active in musical theatre as a conductor, composer, and performer, he has been a part of many productions from local community theatre to professional companies. He is currently Instructor of Music and Director of Ensembles at Bevill State Community College and is a former Assistant Professor of Commercial Music at Mississippi University for Women. In January 1999, as a member and co-founder of The Tuscaloosa Horns, He was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame Music Achievers.
Back to Members
Back to Members