The child of symphony musicians, Shane Endsley grew up immersed in the sound of trumpet and flute practice and surrounded by stacks of vinyl records. This early classical instruction served him well in terms of technique and tone production. Then using his father’s Bix Beiderbeck and big band records as a springboard, Shane began pointing his horn in a more experimental direction as he grew older. His commitment to music was absolute by the time he graduated high school and he gave chase to further studies at the Eastman School of Music. There he met fellow Kneebody members Adam Benjamin, Ben Wendel, and Kaveh Rastegar, and began to develop the framework for their Grammy Award-nominated group.
His peers regard him as a trumpeter of great technique, taste, and compositional ability, and his pure and dark sound have made him a highly sought-after musician for projects in a variety of music styles. Non-instrumental projects have included tours with Ani DiFranco and Jason Mraz as well as a legendary sit-in performance with Pearl jam. Other instrumental projects apart from Kneebody have included tours and recordings with Steve Coleman, Ravi Coltrane, and David Murray. He is also notable for his creative explorations into electronic signal processing that can add an ambient sheen to his famously rich and complex tone or mangle and warp it into a low-fi soundscape.
Shane is the director of education and outreach for the Denver Municipal Band, jazz faculty at MSU Denver, and is in a new trio called Invisible Bird with guitarist Dave Devine and drummer Scott Amendola.
The Denver Municipal Band is the oldest continuous-playing professional concert band in the U.S.
Around since before Colorado was a state, the Denver Municipal Band has been performing for the Denver area for more than a century.
We were founded in the late 1860s by Alex Sutherland, bugler at the "Charge of The Light Brigade." Surviving the ordeal, Sutherland settled in Denver where he was active in many of the city's early musical activities. Originally constituted as the GAR Post Band, it performed early municipally funded concerts throughout the 1870s and 80s, changing its name to the Denver Municipal Band in 1891 when it began its continuous history of Denver Municipal Funding.
The band has always been fully professional, hiring and playing with some of the best musicians of the time period, including being conducted by major bandsmen Frederick Innes, trombone soloist for Sousa, and the renowned solo cornetist, Hermann Bellstedt, Jr. (1858-1926).
