Amy Darling | 30 Under 30

https://youtu.be/uSZqLbHaH70

Trumpeter Amy Darling –  featured on KUVO’s latest release, Live at the Oasis Volume 11 – first became interested in jazz as a senior in high school after deciding she wanted to learn how to improvise. 

An  alumna of Denver School of the Arts and the University of Denver, Amy is currently a composer and bandleader striving to create honest music. 

“The best music that I listen to, I consider to be transparent: you can really read the person through the music,” Amy said. “I want to be able to write just like that.”

Amy’s contemporary jazz project, The Orchid Room, constructs original music melding elements of modern jazz, funk, rock, and more.

“In The Orchid Room, we try to write to the audience. It’s emotional music, so I think getting the audience to feel emotion is a big part of interacting with them…and with our funkier music, getting them to bop their heads and have a good time,” Amy said. 

Amy describes the Denver jazz scene as having strong funk, dance, and swing influences.

“The Denver jazz scene, I think, is actually a lot more thriving than people on the West Coast or the East Coast think it is,” Amy said.

Amy is heavily influenced by modern jazz, especially that coming out of New York.

“What is jazz?” Amy said. “There isn’t really a definition. It’s nothing like what it used to be in the ’50s, but it’s still called jazz, it still comes from the same root.”

“The upcoming generation, they just have to see that [jazz] exists, and they can change it.”

To celebrate 30 years on the air and invest in the future of jazz, KUVO interviewed 30 local musicians under the age of 30. These features will be released on-air and online June 29-October 31.

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