KERRY MOFFIT has been a professional musician for 41 years, performing regularly around the country and around Europe. He has performed with and written arrangements for all types of groups, from large jazz orchestras to small ensembles, and he has appeared on over 70 recordings as a sideman. Moffit has accomplished much over his long career, but he has never released a project under his name until now. WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND, Moffit’s debut CD as a leader with his band, Turning Circles, is an impressive showcase for this brilliant trumpeter’s performance and compositional talents.
Moffit has a good reason for not putting out his own project. He served as a proud member of the United States Air Force Bands for nearly 25 years. The Air Force Bands are among the premier musical organizations in the country. Moffit enlisted in 1991, and throughout his service, he played trumpet in concert bands, ceremonial bands, jazz ensembles, and pop/rock bands for both military and civilian audiences.
A native of Flint, MI, Moffit has been playing in bands since junior high school and continued his music education at Michigan State University, where he studied Orchestral Trumpet Performance. After several years of performing around mid-Michigan, he had reached a point where he wanted to move his career forward. Fellow musicians encouraged him to move to a music mecca like New York or Los Angeles to perform and record, but with a growing family to support, he needed more stability and a steady source of income. A friend had told him about the benefits of joining the Air Force bands, and Moffit decided to audition. He was offered a position with one of the regional bands and enlisted in the Air Force. It wound up being one of the best gigs he could hope for, both professionally and personally.
Moffit spent almost 20 years of his tour of duty at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, the oldest Air Force base in the country. It provides support to more than 9,000 military and civilian personnel around the world. There are over a dozen Air Force Bands around the world with dozens more smaller ensembles that play all types of music – from various classical orchestras to jazz, rock, pop, and country bands that provide musical accompaniment for everything from funerals at Arlington National Cemetery and awards ceremonies to welcoming heads of state and civilian leaders.
Moffit is a straight-ahead jazz trumpeter, but he honed his chops by performing in many different styles. The band was on the road around 10 days a month for eight months a year, touring up and down the East Coast, as well as performing numerous local gigs for holidays and for state and local civilian leaders. In 1996, Moffit was appointed the Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge of the Dixie Players, an ensemble that is part of the United States Air Force Heritage of America Band. The Dixie Players released a CD in 2003, titled Dixie Parade, which received widespread critical acclaim.
In 2010, Moffit was re-assigned to Mons, Belgium, where he became the Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge and Music Director of The NATO Jazz Orchestra, which is part of the SHAPE International Band, the official musical representative of NATO and Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). The band comprised an international roster of musicians from NATO countries. Moffit led the organization on more than 20 missions throughout five Western European countries and was instrumental in the planning and coordination of the NATO Jazz Orchestra CD titled A Taste of NATO, Part II. One of the highlights of his time in Europe was serving as the Artist-in-Residence at the Lier Jazz Festival in Belgium.
After nearly 25 years in the service and attaining the rank of Master Sergeant, Moffit had reached the end of his tenure and was forced to retire in 2015. He says, “I loved the job and the people I worked with. My uniform still fits, and I would go back tomorrow if they let me.”
Since leaving the service, Moffit has worked as a freelance musician and teacher. Over the course of his career, he has performed with numerous jazz artists including Bobby Shew, the New York Voices, Chuck Mangione, Clark Terry, Pete Christlieb, Louis Bellson, Arturo Sandoval and many others. He has also performed with several ensembles at international festivals, including North Sea Jazz Festival in Holland, and the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. He has also appeared on many recordings, including the Grammy winning Grand Serenade for an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion by P.D.Q. Bach.
Moffit returned to Michigan to complete his education and brought on board some of the finest musicians in the Midwest for TURNING CIRCLES, including SETH EBERSOLE (alto and tenor sax), ROB KILLIPS (trombone), ALTIN SENCALAR (trombone), ARLENE PRITCHARD MCDANIEL (Fender Rhodes, piano, Casio Privia), LUTHER ALLISON (Fender Rhodes), TERRY NEWMAN (bass), and IAN LEVINE (drums).
Moffit arranged all the music on this project. He says he chose the songs on WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND based on the traditional rhyme that lays out what a bride should wear at her wedding for good luck: “Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” The four jazz standards on the album represent something borrowed. Hank Mobley’s “This I Dig of You,” Shorty Rogers’ “Just a Few,” Woody Shaw’s “Katrina Ballerina,” and Jimmy Van Heusen’s “But Beautiful,” which was written in 1947 and is the “something old” tune, have a swinging, 1950s West Coast feel. Moffit’s original compositions are the new tunes. Inspired by the great composers/arrangers like Duke Ellington, Sammy Nestico, and Neal Hefti, his compositions are hip with a bop feel. They could easily be mistaken for jazz standards written by one of the masters. Moffit often works through compositions on the piano, playing from his gut rather than analyzing the music intellectually. In fact, he composed “Free for All,” which is a blues in a non-standard form, while he was studying with Charlottesville, Virginia-based trumpeter, John D’Earth.
WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND is a stellar debut album for an artist who has had an amazing career despite the fact he is unknown to general jazz audiences. Moffit is at the top of his form as a musician and composer. His warm trumpet tone and hip phrasing pare beautifully with his sophisticated compositions. Like a fine wine that has had time to age, his music is intricate, full of vibrant colors, and eminently pleasing to the palate.
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WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND is set for release on August 20, 2021 and will be available everywhere.
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Topic: Debut album from Kerry Moffit
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