After 25 years of playing music on various stages in Northwest Arkansas and beyond, trumpeter Jeff Gray still looks forward to a regular Tuesday night gig in a hidden cocktail bar.

“Normally I wouldn’t like to play a regular gig but this isn’t a band that only has 20 songs or something,” he admitted. “Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with a rock and roll band that plays their song the exact same way every time they play it,” but Gray loves improvisation and jazz. That’s at the heart of his jazz group Forte Quintet, which plays each week at Undercroft Bar in Bentonville.

“It is an honor for me to play with those four gentlemen, because I consider them the four best musicians in Northwest Arkansas,” he said.

Gray moved to Northwest Arkansas in 2000 and quips that he’s lucky he wasn’t a guitar player. As a trumpeter, he was able to sit in with lots of popular local bands, even forming his a few of his own in multiple genres from reggae to funk to hip hop. With Forte Quintet he explores all sorts of jazz with a bunch of guys named Matt.

Gray describes guitarist Matt Smith as playing fusion guitar, and incorporates “aggressive, super rock and roll with with crazy harmonies and melodies and aggressive single note patterns,” Gray said. The two have spent the better part of the last 25 years sitting in on each others’ side projects, too.

Matt Beach plays drum for Forte Quintet. Gray calls him a consummate musician. Also a trumpeter, Gray said they’ve both provided the horn section to various recording projects by their fellow musicians in the Northwest Arkansas music scene. On stage with Forte Quintet, Beach help keeps the vibe fresh and the music moving.

“He changes the feel of the music,” Gray said. “We might start out in a bossa nova, but Matt Beach will take us into all these different areas.”

Gray added that he and Beach share a commonality in their early influences.

“We both grew up on New Orleans music, so we both kind of lean towards that type of jazz, those Dixieland and brass band roots. We really like that kind of stuff and get along well.”

He said that they were lucky to find Matt Nelson, who plays keys, after his family recently relocated from Chicago to Northwest Arkansas.

“We’re lucky to have him, because not only did he (attend) school for jazz and live his life playing jazz and touring on the road, but he did that in Chicago for over a decade,” Gray said. “There’s not a note he hears that he doesn’t know exactly where it’s at. And there’s not a thing he hears in his head that he can’t play.”

In addition to the line up of Matts, Garrett Jones plays bass in Forte Quintet. Gray says he works harder than jazz musicians you’d see in New York or Chicago.

“He’s one of those guys that actually has a work ethic,” Gray said. “He takes a bass solo on every single song makes statements, knows the melody, plays theme and variations, has great ideas.”

Even though Forte Quintet plays every week, the show is never the same.

“Even if we play a song we played last week, if we play it again this week, it’s not going to sound the same in any way,” Gray explained. “We’re all aware and listening in the moment and changing what we play compared to what the other players play. And that’s a different kind of living music.”

Gray said that it been a growth experience for him over the past six years. Although he was already a confident soloist like his bandmates, the gig gives them a chance to “woodshed.”

“We all get to sit there and be a part of each other’s lives and really communicate with each other and say a lot of stuff,” Gray said. “We’ll get rowdy, and then we’ll be real sweet. We’ll do all these different colors and flavors, and by the end of it, at 9:30, I’m, of course, physically tired from playing a brass instrument, but then just excited. It refreshes me for the rest of the week.”

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At A Glance

Catch Jeff Gray & Forte Quintet at 7 p.m. every Tuesday at Undercroft Bar in Bentonville.