Trumpeter, 8, finds jazzy groove

A little boy with a big sound. That’s Geoffrey Gallante, an accomplished trumpet player at age 8 who never buckles under pressure.

“Practice like you’re performing, and perform like you’re practicing,” says the barely 4-foot prodigy as he’s waiting to perform the national anthem for thousands of people at a recent George Mason University men’s basketball game.

Is he nervous?

“Not at all,” he replies in rapid-fire mode, his ice-blue eyes peering. He’s been free buzzing - blowing air through pursed lips - and doing scales in a tiny arena dressing room during the past hour.

Then he walks out - all 50 pounds of him - in his dark blue corduroy dinner jacket, baggy jeans and blond winter-dry hair to the middle of the court and plays a smooth, pitch-perfect rendition of the national anthem.

It swings.

That’s really what makes Geoffrey so special. Not only is he technically skilled at a young age - a la Suzuki prodigies - but he possesses that intangible, intuitive thing that all great jazz musicians have: a unique groove.

“He has an incredible sense of rhythm,” says Jim Carroll, director of jazz studies at George Mason University. “And he’s got a particular gift for jazz and improvisation.”

Mr. Carroll and Geoffrey have known each other about half of the 8-year-old’s life. Their paths crossed when Geoffrey’s stay-at-home dad, David Gallante, approached Mr. Carroll about gigs for his then-kindergartner.

Mr. Carroll was intrigued and booked Geoffrey to perform “Mack the Knife” with his Fairfax-based Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra at a local fundraiser.

“He saved the show and brought the house down,” Mr. Carroll says.

Geoffrey, who was 5 at the time, had been playing for about a year.

“When he was 4 and we were at grandma’s house for Thanksgiving he picked up his brother’s old trumpet and started playing,” says his father, who looks a bit like John Walsh, host of “America’s Most Wanted.”

“And the rest, as they say, is history,” Mr. Gallante continues.

But raw talent is not enough.

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