His grandfather J.C. Moses was a renowned jazz drummer who recorded and performed with the likes of Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Dorham, Jackie McLean, and brothers Stanley and Tommy Turrentine. And while his grandfather died the year before Emmett was born, he left a deep musical legacy in the Goods household. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe literally just missed each other,\u201d says Goods. \u201cBut he was a big presence in my life. My mom was still connected to all these people that were a part of his life in music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His mother, Regina, would take him to countless concerts to see musical legends, like jazz singer Betty Carter and saxophonist Sonny Rollins. And when his mother wasn\u2019t available, she let it be known to an extended family of friends and relatives that, if there was an extra ticket, there was a young boy more than happy to go to the show with them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And there was his hometown, Pittsburgh itself, home to many jazz greats and a way station between New York and Chicago for scores more.<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/news\/sites\/16\/2025\/01\/Emmett-Album.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nGoods has captured his journey, in and out of music, on his debut solo album, \u201cAnother Level,\u201d released by Truth Revolution Records, the Grammy-nominated label run by former 溏心vlog免费B站 faculty member Zaccai Curtis. Seven of the nine tracks on the album were written by Emmett, and they provide a musical portrait of him through the people and places that have meant a lot to him. The album features his older brother Richie Goods, who produced the album, played bass and wrote the track \u201cGoods Brothers.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity to finally get some of these things out,\u201d Emmett says. \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve entered another season in my life, and it\u2019s time to kind of mark that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On \u201cAnother Level,\u201d Emmett honors his relationship with his mother with \u201cOctober Tune.\u201d In \u201cSweet Dreams,\u201d he remembers his late wife, while \u201cWest Indian Queen,\u201d celebrates his current wife. For his grandmother, there\u2019s \u201cTriedstone,\u201d named for the little church \u201cshe drug us to whether we wanted to go to or not. It ends up meaning a lot in my life. I think about that place often.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The album opens with \u201cBennet Street Blues,\u201d recalling the community in which he grew up, the street where he was born, his great-grandmother\u2019s house, and his high school\u2013 Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts\u2013where he learned under legendary drummer Roger Humphries, before trading in the drumsticks for the trombone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was not his greatest drum student,\u201d says Goods. \u201cAnd so I switched to trombone and the rest is history.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnother Level,\u201d marks Goods\u2019 debut as a band leader, which he likens to having a baby\u2013from finding the right publicist and booking agent to touring to support the project. Also lining up the musicians to record the album was a minefield. \u201cMan, so many things happen between making plans to actually getting to the recording studio,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I lived in Atlanta, I can\u2019t tell you how many times I was called in at the last minute to make a record.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Along with the Goods brothers, the band includes three 溏心vlog免费B站 music faculty members \u2013 Haneef Nelson (trumpet\/flugelhorn), who wrote \u201cBlues for the Enslaved,\u201d Andrew Wilcox (piano), and Atla DeChamplain (voice). Rounding out the lineup are Nathan Edwards (tenor saxophone), Mark Whitfield Jr. (drums), and Shedrick Mitchell (organ). The album was recorded in the Fine Arts Center Concert Hall, engineered by 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Ethan Hicks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since its release, the album has received good reviews and gotten a lot of airtime on radio, especially SiriusXM\u2019s \u201cReal Jazz.\u201d \u201cIt means a lot that they\u2019ve been willing to play it on \u2018Real Jazz,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Goods, who also serves as director of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Big Band, his work away from the classroom \u2013 performing and recording \u2013 provides an important lesson to students of what it takes to be a working musician.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m just not up here preaching to you,\u201d says Goods, who also co-leads the Latin Jazz Project, which is working on its first album. \u201cI\u2019m telling you what I know for a fact, what I\u2019ve had to deal with. It\u2019s how I was brought up in music. Some of my mentors, Jackie McLean, Steve Davis, Nathan Davis, were all practitioners. All these wonderful people not only played the music, but they also went out and performed the music.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n