The Fine Arts Center at the University of Rhode Island hosted Emmett Goods and his band, Another Level, in a jazz concert on Thursday, April 11, featuring songs from his new record and covers of other songs by some of his favorite artists.
Emmett Goods is an assistant professor of music and Africana studies and director of jazz studies. In Another Level, he plays the trombone and is the lead member.
The concert featured songs from his first record, which was released in September 2022, Goods said in the show. He played songs that he wrote for the women in his life and a song his brother wrote. He also played “Thomasville” by Stanley Turrentine and “Sweet n’ Sour” by Wayne Shorter. His original “Sweet Dreams,” also featured Goods’ colleague and a vocalist, Atla DeChamplain.
The songs for the women in his life were “West Indian Queen” for his wife, “October Tune” for his mom, “Triedstone” for his grandmother and “Faith and Love” for his family, all of which he wrote. The song his brother wrote for him was “Goods Brothers.”
“My brother is nine years older than me and he’s a fabulous musician,” Goods said during the show. “When [the band] did this project, I said ‘you gotta write something for us.’”
Most of the songs sounded similar: they had an upbeat tune and each band member took turns playing solos, producing a round of applause from the audience after each one. The only song with a different sound was “Faith and Love,” which was a slower ballad, and the sound was in unison.
Other than Goods on the trombone, there were five other members of the band. Nathan Edwards was on the saxophone, and Haneef Nelson played the trumpet and flugelhorn. They had Andrew Wilcox on the piano, Matt Dwonsyzk on the bass and the drums were played by Akin Hobson.
Dwonsyzk is a bass player out of New York City. Wilcox is from Hartford and is a student of Zaccai Curtis, a jazz piano professor at URI. Hobson is a drummer from Cleveland, Nelson is a URI professor of music and Edwards is a middle school band director in West Hartford, Connecticut.
This was Hobson’s first time playing live. Playing with Goods was a chance for him to put on a great performance, Hobson said. He loved the songs picked and Goods’ song writing.
There were parts for Hobson that he wanted to take back. During the show, he noticed that there were things that could’ve been better. However, he felt like the energy was there and everyone played great.
“I’m always a believer that you can just kind of improve on any performance,” Hobson said.
Hobson’s favorite songs performed were “Sweet Dreams” and “Triedstone.” He told Goods that he loved “Sweet Dreams” because of its beautiful melody and because it has a nice key signature change. He loves “Triedstone” because it got the best crowd reaction: everyone was dancing along.
The concert went a little longer than anticipated but it went well, according to Goods. The band was having a lot of fun and there was great energy throughout the whole concert. His favorite song was the second one, “Sweet n’ Sour.”
“That [song] was a lot of fun to do [as it was] something that I’ve always wanted to play and never had the opportunity to do,” Goods said.
For information about upcoming music events, visit the Fine Arts Center’s events page .