Monday, March 17, 7pm
The Royal Room
5000 Rainier Ave S
$10-20 or Gold Pass*

For over three decades, the Golden Ear Awards have afforded the Seattle jazz community the opportunity to celebrate itself. 

Besides acknowledging the cream of each year’s crop—outstanding recordings, ensembles, instrumentalists, vocalists and concerts—Golden Ear voters pay homage to the local legends who bind the scene together, inducting a new member of the Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame, and honor future legends, naming an annual Emerging Artist of the Year.

All ceremony aside, the Golden Ears are also a hell of a party, filling a local club to the rafters—from Lofurno’s in 1991 to The Royal Room today—for a raucous evening of camaraderie and fellowship, punctuated by a set or two from a hot local band.

This year, this golden affair features the New York-born, Seattle-based trombonist and composer Freddy “Fuego” Gonzalez. 

The son of a musical Puerto Rican family, Harlem native Gonzalez took up the trombone as a middle schooler. Inspired by a revelatory jam session at Greenwich Village’s renowned Blue Note club, he set aside his pre-law studies at Fordham University to pursue a career in music. After two years at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, Gonzalez returned to New York to complete his undergraduate degree at the New School, studying composition under saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom, and sharing the stage or studio with artists as varied as B.B. King, Arturo O’Farrill and the Wu-Tang Clan. Upon earning a master’s degree in film scoring at Berklee’s Valencia, Spain, campus, he joined the touring band of Latin pop superstar Alejandro Sanz, playing stadiums throughout Latin America.

Since relocating to Washington in 2018, Gonzalez has become a mainstay of the Seattle scene, performing with local heavy hitters like D’Vonne Lewis, teaching at Seattle Drum School and The Northwest School, and hosting the KNKX Latin jazz showcase Jazz Caliente. A frequent Earshot Jazz Festival participant, he pulled triple duty in 2023, holding down the trombone slot in saxophonist Alex Dugdale’s funk band alongside performances in tributes to Gil Scott-Heron and Mary Lou Williams. During the 2024 festival, Gonzalez world premiered a new commission for the 25-piece Freddy Fuego Orchestra, honing a distinctive blend of funk, reggae, hip hop, and rock that he termed “cinematic jazz.”

Hosted for the third year running by the irrepressible Alex Dugdale, a Golden Ear winner in his own right, the Golden Ear Awards get down at The Royal Room on Monday, March 17. Tickets on sale now at earshot.org.

*Learn more about Earshot Jazz’s new season pass the “Gold Pass” at earshot.org/goldpass.