creative bass-trombonist & sousaphonist
recording artist, improvisor, composer, interdisciplinary performance artist, Music educator
Brad is well known for his powerful sound and inventive improvising and has been contributing full-time to the Vancouver music scene since 1980, working in all musical genres and styles, in settings from symphonic section playing to unaccompanied trombone improvisation. He established himself as one of the uncommon bass-trombonists to work as a jazz improvisor and as a sought-after traditional / standard / modern / funk fusion jazz tuba-bass player. He has performed, recorded and toured with his own groups BM4, Treesong, Koan, Primal Orbit, BRASS ROOTS as well as Vancouver's three most important large jazz ensembles: the NOW Orchestra (A.K.A. Orkestra Futura), Hugh Fraser & VEJI, and the Hard Rubber Orchestra. He has been extensively involved with Vancouver's jazz / new-music community as a performer and composer with numerous small and large ensembles, both as leader and sideman. He has independently produced, directed and performed in many single event professional and community-based interdisciplinary projects, and several multi-year independent educational programs. His most recent project “We And They” released a compilation recording of Brad’s social commentary songs called “I Have Seen The Enemy and They Are We” in April 2025.
He spent his adult life working as a freelance musician, composer / arranger, recording artist, interdisciplinary collaboration artist / project instigator, music educator, arts administrator, community music facilitator and music copyist. His career has been widely varied in content and direction with lots of overlap / crossover between all the different areas of work, which has kept things interesting - there has always been something going on, getting up & running, being planned and being dreamed-up, from new creative ensembles to new works for existing groups, interdisciplinary projects and new artistic practices. The temporary full-stop of basically everything caused by Covid brought on a career reset, resulting in all but occasional teaching situations and the hustle for active freelance work to be replaced by more selective creative pursuits and performing situations. Continuing to compose and produce interdisciplinary projects has been augmented with (sometimes overshadowed by) delving into the worlds of audio and video production, as well as an active return to an early-adulthood passion - painting with acrylics (*see “artwork” page).