Chad Willis

The first years of Chad Willis’s professional career were already an education in adaptability. Playing aboard cruise ships took him across the Pacific; the University of North Texas gave that experience a rigorous new frame. At UNT he worked as a lead trumpet player in the acclaimed One O’Clock Lab Band while also serving as principal trumpet in symphony and wind ensembles. For Willis, the boundaries between jazz precision, orchestral discipline and the physical language of brass playing were porous from the beginning. A master’s degree in Jazz Performance at USC Thornton brought him into Bob Mintzer’s musical orbit. He recorded for Mintzer's All L.A. Band project and continued performing and touring with Lyle Lovett and The Manhattan Transfer. Work with Bill Holman, John Daversa, Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band and other ensembles further sharpened the skill set of a musician comfortable as a lead player, ensemble voice and collaborator. The Chad Willis Jazz Orchestra is where those experiences take on another shape. Instead of hearing only the trumpet, you hear a bandleader's choices: how sections answer one another, how a theme swells, how the arrangement sets a soloist free. At Campus JAX, his June 4, 2026 concert with Crystal Lewis and October 8's Heroes, Villains & Movie Themes program show two sides of that impulse—the sweep of classic big-band language and the theatrical vocabulary of screen music. He also carries the craft forward through his role at Fullerton College. It is a fitting circle: the musician who knows what it means to be one voice in a world-class ensemble now spends time helping the next players find theirs.