Joe Brotherton is essentially the artist-in-residence at St. Vincent wine bar in Park View. The live music schedule posted outside their front door on Georgia Avenue NW varies each week, but the trumpeter’s name sits in special and unchanging font at the top.

“The second time I played there, right when they first started doing music, they came up and they were like, ‘What have we got to do to get you to play here once a week?’” recalls Brotherton, 49, who released a quartet album titled Here to Hear on February 12. “I was like, ‘Well, we’re always available on Monday, so let’s do Mondays.’ It was quiet for a while, but now it just bubbles over every Monday.”

It’s true. On the Monday night I stopped in to see the JB3 (with pianist Ryan Hanseler and drummer Tyler Leak joining Brotherton on the small upstairs bandstand), the few empty tables all bore “Reserved” signs. Not everyone is engaged in close listening to JB3’s rollicking take on Louis Armstrong’s “Big Butter and Egg Man”—as is often the case, post-solo applause comes at my own instigation—but they’re here and they’re spending money, which is exactly what the band are here for. 

Picking an Armstrong tune isn’t happenstance. Brotherton’s top billing also includes the tagline “Sounds of New Orleans,” a nod to St. Vincent’s New Orleans theme. Here to Hear closes with two Crescent City standards, “Bourbon Street Parade” and “Li’l Liza Jane” (the latter also closes the set I witness in Park View). But that’s just one in the trumpeter’s bag of tricks. The album also includes a post-bop rendering of the Gershwins’ “Summertime”; the hip-hop-charged “Friday Night Funky Jont,” featuring a rap by Flex Matthews; the samba “Brazilian Rain”; and the fiery swinger “Drizzle’s Abacus” with a turn by saxophonist Elijah Easton. All, save “Summertime” and the New Orleans tunes, are originals. 

“It covers all of my favorite sounds,” says Brotherton of Here to Hear. “The Afro-Latin sound, the burner swing, the New Orleans stuff, and then the hip-hop. It’s kind of my personality, what you’re hearing on the record.” Brotherton’s quartet will also bring his personality to Jazz Night at Westminster Presbyterian Church on March 29.

Brotherton has been a staple of the D.C. jazz scene—a consistent and popular presence—since the ’90s. Those of us who cover the scene have somewhat overlooked him. He possesses a clear, clean, somewhat dark trumpet tone with beautifully subtle vibrato and a casual facility that can make speedy bravura runs feel tossed off. Brotherton belongs to the top tier of DMV horn players.

In fairness, though, the writerly neglect doesn’t seem to have hurt Brotherton’s prospects for work. “I am in demand,” he acknowledges. “It’s about connections; it’s about hustle. I work with tons of different bands around town, on other people’s recording projects and all that; and then I’ve got my own trio and quartet and quintet. All of that keeps me working.”

Born in Nashville, Tennessee, and raised in Knoxville until he was 11, Brotherton then moved with his family to Tampa Bay, Florida, where he graduated from the Pinellas County Center for the Arts. After one year at a “little podunk school” in Indiana (which he declines to name), he auditioned for the Marine Band and found himself in the D.C. area. Discharged after four years, he started independently contacting people he wanted to study with. It worked. “I got with [trumpeters] Wynton Marsalis and Ingrid Jensen, and [saxophonist] Ron Blake. So it’s like I went to my own college.”

He also spent ample time at area jam sessions, especially at the now-defunct HR-57, where he met fellow trumpeter Thad Wilson and joined the latter’s big band. He stayed through the band’s residencies at One Step Down, Bohemian Caverns, and Twins, and still plays with Wilson whenever he reconvenes the ensemble. That was Brotherton’s launchpad to a broader career in the D.C. scene. Soon he was leading his own bands in addition to playing with others—not just in (multiple styles of) jazz, but go-go, salsa, and “corporate scene, top 40-type bands for events and stuff,” he says.

In short, if you’re reading this column, it’s unlikely that you’ve missed out on Brotherton entirely. If you somehow have, remedy that immediately. The affordable $10 admission at Westminster on the 29 is a fine opportunity; Monday nights at St. Vincent are even better. Here to Hear, available on vinyl as well as just about every streaming platform, might be best of all: You can take it home and wear it out, and it will make you even more likely to look for one of his eclectic and immensely enjoyable live gigs.

Joe Brotherton’s quartet plays from 6 to 9 p.m. on March 29 at Westminster Presbyterian Church. westminsterdc.org.