Dave is our high note man, something no jazz orchestra should be without. He is also the co-leader of the Courriers big band. He has taught band in several school districts and now teaches up to 40 private trombone students each week. Brooks may also be heard with various symphony orchestras such as Ann Arbor, Plymouth and Flint. A 1983 graduate of the University of Michigan, he is a middle school music teacher in the Ann Arbor Public Schools.
Gene enjoys playing classical chamber music with several local brass quintets.
He appears regularly with many other groups, most notably James Dapogny's Chicago Jazz Band. Christo is one of those rare birds who enjoys playing traditional and modern jazz equally. He has an enormous collection of jazz trombone recordings, with a concentration on J.J. Johnson, Jack Teagarden and the virtually unknown Hollywood trombonist by the name of Abe Lincoln. Smith is becoming known as an authority on jazz trombone legend J.J. Johnson, having written several Johnson articles and reviews and interviewed him over the Internet. He was a consultant for the discography of a forthcoming Johnson biography by Louis Bourgois III and Joshua Berrett, to be published in summer 1999 by scarecrow press.