- His achievements through a long career have been an important inspiration for some leading contemporary black British jazz musicians.
- Abandoning his plans to return from Britain to Jamaica to work as an engineer, Goode decided to embark upon a musical career.
- In 1967 he recorded with Chris McGregor, Dudu Pukwana, Ronnie Beer, and Laurie Allan on Gwigwi Mrwebi's Mbaqanga Songs.
- Goode came to Britain in 1934 as a 19-year-old student at the Royal Technical College in Glasgow (later the University of Strathclyde), and then went on to read for a degree in engineering at Glasgow University.
- Goode's rich, full tone, flawless timekeeping, effective swing and, above all, his ability to supply the appropriate nuance and flourish to the more challenging abstractions of a piece, particularly Harriott's, assure his place in history.
- Goode was also involved with the saxophonist's later pioneering blend of jazz and Indian music in Indo-Jazz Fusions, the group Harriott co-led with composer/violinist John Mayer.
- Goode was a member of Harriott's innovatory jazz quintet throughout its eight-year existence as a regular unit (1958-65).
- On 18 May 2011, Goode was honoured with the Services to Jazz Award at the Parliamentary Jazz Awards, held at the House of Commons.
- Goode played in Tito Burns' sextet and led his own group, before being invited to join Harriott's new band in 1958.
- Goode was still performing in the house band at Laurie Morgan's Sunday jam sessions at the King's Head in Crouch End into his 90s.
- In 2014, the year Goode celebrated turning 100, a special performance was organised for him at the London Jazz Festival,[4][8] led by Gary Crosby.
- He was a British Jamaican-born jazz bassist best known for his long collaboration with alto saxophonist Joe Harriott.
- One of the finest jazz bassists who has worked in Europe, Goode is an important link to a proud heritage of Caribbean contributions to the music.
- His primary early influences as a bassist were Walter Page, Slam Stewart and Jimmy Blanton. Moving to London in 1942, Goode subsequently worked with Johnny Claes, Eric Winstone, Lauderic Caton and Dick Katz, became a founder member of the Ray Ellington Quartet and recorded with Django Reinhardt in 1946, alongside Stephane Grappelli.
- In 1944, Goode married Gertrude Selmeczi, a Jewish refugee from Vienna, Austria, of Hungarian origin; the marriage, lasting 70 years until her death aged 96 in June 2015,.
- His father was a choirmaster and organist who promoted classical choral music in Jamaica and his mother sang in the choir. As Goode recalled: "My name comes from my father putting on a performance of Samuel Coleridge Taylor's Hiawatha's Wedding Feast as a tribute to him.... I was born a year after.".
- He also worked extensively with the pianist Mike Garrick, contributing a fine vocal in the manner of Leroy "Slam" Stewart to The Lord's Prayer on Garrick's 1968 album Jazz Praises. Goode's singing on that composition would undoubtedly have conjured up for him memories of growing up in the shadow of the church in the Caribbean, for he was born into a religious family in Kingston, Jamaica.
- During the 1960s and 1970s, Goode worked extensively with pianist/composer Michael Garrick.
- In 2002, his autobiography Bass Lines: A Life in Jazz, co-authored with his friend, the academic and jazz writer Roger Cotterrell, not only told his own story but provided poignant and vivid memories of the brilliant and tragic Harriott and of the birth of free form jazz in Britain.
- He was already proficient as an amateur classical violinist but turned to jazz and took up the bass after hearing the music of such stars as Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday and Louis Jordan.
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