We were lucky to catch up with Kurt Moorehead recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kurt thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I started my journey in music pretty young. My dad, Wayne Moorehead, was a drummer in his younger years in Illinois but he quit playing for the most part when he moved to Durango, Colorado where he met my mom. He still played out a bit in Durango, but by the time I was born he had pretty much hung up the sticks. He still had his drum set at our home and I remember my older brother Jeff banging on those when I was a toddler. By the time I was ready to pick up an instrument my mom was adamant that I pick something different than drums! I think she’d had enough of the drums at that point! Anyway, I chose the saxophone at age 11 and started my journey. I feel fortunate that I grew up when I did because elementary school music was still an important part of the learning experience and I was hooked by the time I got to middle school.

An important part of my early childhood, even before getting my first sax, was my dad’s obsession with Jazz. He had an incredible record collection. By the time of his death in 2000 he had acquired over1,800 vinyl records. His collection is now on display in my basement studio. Anyway, he had a radio show he did a couple of times a week in Durango where he’d play music from this collection so there was constant music playing in our den at home as he prepared for his show and just listened for pleasure. He loved the big band era so I grew up listening to Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Stan Kenton and the list goes on. He also loved the tenor sax players of his time so there was quite a bit of Ben Webster, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins… well you get the idea, constant jazz playing at home. By the time I reached high school age I was hooked on Jazz and this became my goal, to go to college to study music and play music professionally.

In high school I was fortunate to have a teacher that was a jazz enthusiast and knew a bit of the skills needed to become a proficient improvisor. Learning how to play improvised solos over blues then simple jazz standards was a huge influence on my growth. That and having my dads record collection to explore became my main tools and I felt like I excelled quite a bit in my teenage years. But there was a lack of playing jazz musicians in Durango so my exposure to this world was very limited. By the time I graduated high school I thought I was pretty good but all that changed when left Durango to attend a small college in Mesa Arizona that had a great music program. I arrived confident that I was “the guy” but was put in my place early on which is maybe the biggest lesson I learned… humility. I learned very quickly that there are always people better than you and to respect that fact. Regardless of age, gender or ethnicity, there is always something you can learn from others and that lesson I have carried with me to this day.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Obviously my dad had a huge impact on my early interests. By time I reached high school age, my dad had retired from his career as a journalist for the Durango Herald. This extra time at home enabled us to hang out and talk about Jazz and he turned me on to his favorite sax players. That was really the start of my appreciation for jazz and improvising in general and my love for the tenor saxophone.

After high school, I attended Mesa Community College mainly because of a teacher, Grant Wolf, who I met at the Northern Arizona University Jazz Festival my high school jazz band attended. I learned a ton those first few years in college but I took a break from school to give a go at playing professionally. I soon realized that playing music for a living is very difficult so decided to move back to Colorado and resume my college education at the University Of Northern Colorado (UNC) where I studied clarinet and saxophone performance. It was here I played with great musicians and was awarded soloist awards for Downbeat magazine’s collegiate competition 3 years in a row. I am proud of these achievements but my college career highlight was being a featured soloist playing with Dave Brubeck when he attended UNC’s yearly gala at Boettcher Hall in 1992. It was such a privilege to play with a jazz legend like Dave Brubeck but I also played with JJ Johnson, Louis Bellson among other nationally known guest artists while attending UNC. Really awesome experiences!

After finishing up my college career, I joined a local Denver based band called the Psychodelic Zombiez. This band had a unique flavor of Funk, Jazz and Rock. We toured up and down the west coast and put out 2 albums, one of which was recorded at the famous A&M recording studio in Hollywood. We also opened up for Primus, Fishbone and actually did a show with No Doubt before they made the national stage. These were great, fun years for me but the band came to a crossroads in the mid 1990’s where some members wanted to move to LA and give it go and some did not. The band broke up in 1998 and the last show we performed was a few days before I got married. Needless to say I was one of the members that did not want to move to LA. Those who did move to California went on to do great things and some even have been nominated for Grammy’s. Timing was just not right for me to take that leap.

For me, as I mentioned, I married my wife of 28 years in 1998 and we have 3 adult aged kids now. I ended up getting a job as a software engineer to pay the bills but still maintained and active music career on the side. Now that my kids are grown up and out on their own, I have started playing out more and have built up a home studio where I am actively recording and trying my hand at film scoring. Music is my life long passion but it is very hard to make a living at it, however, it is very possible to juggle careers I have found. In 2008 I was asked to put together a horn section for Big Head Todd and the Monsters Red Rocks show and have done a few BHT shows over the past decade. I currently play live in a few projects in town: an R&B cover band called Soul School, the Quemando salsa band, Wish We Were Floyd (Pink Floyd tribute), a funk/reggae band called BSP and I recently have joined a reggae band called Link & Chain who’s core members are from Jamaica and are really great singers with a great repertoire of original music rooted in traditional reggae.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

After I got married and started a family, I really thought my music career was over but my passion and pride of being a musician prevailed. Music definitely took a back seat when my kids were young but I also made music a big part of parenting. I never pushed my kids into playing an instrument but they have a true respect for what it takes to be a musician and they come see me play all the time now that they’re older. They seem proud of their dad. I was also very fortunate to land a job in software engineering 20 years ago. Having no degree or previous experience in the field I got an opportunity and hopped on it. I found that computer programming was much like composing music and I love working in the IT industry which enabled me to not to rely on music as a living. As a result I can pick an choose what music I want to play with out worrying about the money. I certainly appreciate full time musicians but to raise 3 kids just playing music would have been very difficult for me. Having dual careers is very, very possible!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The pride of creating something you can call your own. I have been writing music since I was 14 years old, and now days its so easy to push out music to the world. I love writing, recording, producing, mixing and mastering my own music as well as collaborating with other musicians. With todays technology this has become very easy to accomplish. I fear many young or new musicians will lean towards AI to create music which for me takes all the fun away. AI generated music is gonna happen but my advice to anyone starting their musical journey is to learn the value of learning the craft. It takes a lot of work and can seem slow going but reaching the creative milestones on the journey is way more satisfying in the long run.

My latest musical passion is in the world of film scoring or “sync” as it’s referred to now days. I have been working on this the last 5 years first scoring student films from friends attending the Colorado Film School and the last couple of years doing short indie films as well as longer full length feature films of local directors and producers. This is a very satisfying process for me, to capture the emotions in a film and bringing them to life by with music. It’s really brought me back the training I had in college regarding music theory, sound acoustics, orchestration, etc… I can see myself doing this the rest of my life and I feel I am pretty good at it as well. It’s very satisfying from a creative perspective and hope to do more of this moving forward!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kurtmooreheadmusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kunimooney/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@KurtMooreheadMusic

Image Credits
Michael McGrath