Remembering Gordon Goodwin

December 30, 1954 – December 8, 2025

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Gordon Goodwin passed away on Dec. 8, 2025 at the age of 70.

He was born on Dec. 30, 1954 in Wichita, Kansas and grew up in Southern California.

Goodwin, who played tenor-sax and piano, wanted to lead his own big band from an early age he wrote his first big and arrangement (“Hang Loose”) when he was in the seventh grade.

In high school he played in a student band that performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival.

Goodwin studied music at Cal State Northridge where he played with the highly-rated college band while performing on tenor and piano with a rock band at night.

While still in school, he wrote his first film score in 1978 for Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes.

After graduation, Goodwin worked as a musician at Disneyland and his career got going when he was hired to write a musical show for the Mousketeers, resulting in him composing and arranging for television shows and becoming pianist and musical director for Johnny Mathis.

He worked in many different settings as a composer, arranger and conductor including with Ray Charles, Natalie Cole, Sarah Vaughan, Mel Torme and Quincy Jones, and writing for 80 films.

In 1999, Goodwin founded the Big Phat Band, an exciting big band that began recording in 2000 with Swingin’ For The Fences, its first of ten albums.

By putting on entertaining and witty shows, reaching out to young people (many up-and-coming musicians played Goodwin’s arrangements in high school and college bands), and expert marketing, Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band resisted all trends and consistently attracted overflow crowds at clubs and concerts.

In addition to the big band, Goodwin was always involved in many writing assignments including revising the unique music of Raymond Scott in 2024 for Quartet San Francisco and a combo taken out of his big band.

Here is Gordon Goodwin with his Big Phat Band in 2009 playing “Backrow Politics,” a feature for trumpeters Bob Summers, Wayne Bergeron, Willie Murillo and Dan Savant with Goodwin (who wrote the piece) on piano.

-Scott Yanow

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