LAKEWOOD - Gordon Dooley is ready to let someone else horn in on his territory - if they dare.

Dooley is retiring from the music business - as bandleader and arranger, as trumpeter, as goodwill ambassador to fans of big-band music.

At 87, after after nearly 70 years as a professional musician, he's entitled to retire.

It's not age, but economics that has forced him out.

"Lack of work for the orchestra - people just aren't spending money for a big-band orchestra," he said Wednesday, over lunch at Cafe Jordano.

Dooley and music were introduced at an early age. It hasn't just been a part of his life, it has been his life for at least 80 years.

"My father was a violinist. He taught violin. So I took up violin," Dooley said.

He had a gift for music. In junior high in Jamaica, Queens, N.Y., he put together a dance band.

"One of the fellows - Charlie Beck - played trumpet," Dooley said. "One day, he said, 'Who wants to buy this old horn for 10 bucks?' And I said, 'I do.' I put away the violin forever, doing the music world a big favor."

Dooley graduated from high school in 1939. He heard about an opening with a band, auditioned and was hired. The band played six nights a week. Then he joined another.

The work was steady.

Then came World War II. The Army Air Forces called up Dooley to serve, and then assigned him to a service band in Atlantic City, N.J.

He was transferred to Denver during the war, serving at Buckley and Lowry.

He went back to New York after the war. The business was changing.

"A lot of musicians wanted to get off the road," he said.

He did, too. He had a wife and child by then. So he took a job playing in Manhattan.

"It was the hardest job I ever had," he said. "We performed from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m."

He'd had his fill of the music scene in New York, said it wasn't the same city when he returned. And he liked his time in Denver. So he moved back and settled in, forming the Gordon Dooley Orchestra.

"Gordon played tunes people liked to hear, but at great tempos people loved to dance to," said longtime friend Ron Moewes, a drummer and former public school music teacher.

Dooley is still dapper. His once dark hair and trim mustache are gray.

"He reminds me of those old movie lovers from the '30s - like John Barrymore," said another friend, Rich Italiano, who called Dooley "an icon of the music scene in Denver."

Now, it's the end of the road for Dooley. But he isn't going quietly.

"We're giving Gordon his swan song," Moewes said.

There's a free party from 3-6 p.m. Sunday at the Lakewood Elks Lodge downstairs ballroom, 1455 Newland St. Featured performers will be the Gordon Dooley Orchestra, featuring vocalist Joni Janak.

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