Andrew Hudson at Dazzle’s Lunch Club | Second Fridays

Join Andrew Hudson for DazzleJazz’s Friday Lunch Club the second Friday of every month!

Hudson will lead a jazz jam every second Friday of the month from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM in the Dizzy Room. Bring your instrument and/or your appetite!

Dazzle’s 3-course lunch special is just $10. There is no cover charge, but reservations are highly recommended. Call 303-839-5100 to reserve your spot. 

Below is a summary of Andrew’s musical journey growing up as a Denver kid, in his own words: 

I’ve been playing music since I was about six years old.  Growing up in a family where my parents were both music teachers, it was really a natural evolution; I think I learned a ‘C’ scale before I learned to ride a bike.  

I first started taking piano lessons, then, when I was old enough to join the band at Ellis elementary school, I decided to play the Tuba.  Don’t ask my why. Perhaps it was because I was the youngest and smallest in a family of 4 kids and wanted to make an impression by learning a really big instrument. Nevertheless, I became quite good.

When I entered Place Junior High School, the band teacher recognized that I was an excellent ‘reader’ and asked if I’d like to learn to play electric bass and perform with the jazz band.  I jumped at it and got my first electric bass – a half-size Gibson EB3.  

My parents loved jazz.  As a matter of fact, I was probably the luckiest kid around.  They had a pretty good record collection, but more than that, my mother, Julie, was heavily involved with the National Association of Jazz Educators, a large association that helped to promote and create new opportunities for jazz education in schools across the nation.  

I was also fortunate because I lived in Denver.  Some find it hard to believe, but Denver is somewhat of a Mecca for jazz.  It has a strong jazz community with a wealth of terrific jazz musicians. As a young jazz musician growing up in Denver, I was able to take advantage of Dick Gibson’s Jazz Series.  

Dick Gibson was an entrepreneur who had something to do with the invention of the WaterPik. In any case, he became incredibly wealthy and spent his time and money promoting jazz in Colorado. His legendary jazz parties in Aspen, and then at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, brought the world’s greatest jazz musicians together for three days of swinging jazz.  

There were also several [Denver] jazz clubs that featured local jazz musicians including Josephina’s, the Regas Cafe, Cafe Napenthes and the Voters Club.  Of course the most famous was the El Chapultepec (the ‘Pec’) on 20th and Market.

When I was young jazz musician in high school, me and my friends would sneak down there, which at the time was Denver’s version of skid row (this was before Coors Field and all of the LoDo development) and we’d hang by the side door which was typically open during the summer. 

The stage was right next to this door and we’d listen for hours to all the great jazz coming from inside. What was great was this was also the place where musicians traveling through Denver would come down to “jam.”

EVERYONE would come down: Jaco Pastorious was there, Chet Baker, Sting, the Marsalis brothers. Every once in a while, Freddy Rodriguez, who has been leading the band at the ‘Pec for the past 30 years, would stick his head out and if there wasn’t much of a crowd, ask us if we wanted to come sit in on a blues. Clearly the thrill of our young lives!

But it wasn’t easy. The musicians on the stand didn’t take kindly to musicians who weren’t  prepared to play with them. We had to know our stuff and if we messed up, you’d feel Bruno Carr’s drumstick beating your on your head as I did a few times.