Musician Shane Chalke first came to the western North Carolina High Country by accident.

An educated mathematician, Chalke always kept music a part of his life while working at his day job up north. Two decades ago, however, he took a road trip with his father that landed him in Banner Elk where he wandered onto the natural beauty of the area, and a jazz band playing in a local restaurant.

“I was on a motorcycle trip with my dad maybe 20 years ago or more. I was living in Northern Virginia and what we liked to do was to ride down the Blue Ridge, just wandering around.” said Chalke. “We didn’t use a map or worry about where we would go. When we pulled into Banner Elk, we really didn’t know what it was, and it was one of those beautiful June evenings when the sun sets at 9:15 p.m. and it is perfect mountain weather. We pulled up to the Louisiana Purchase and went in to get some dinner and guess what — there is jazz being played up in the balcony. It turned out to be Todd Wright, from App State. I was sitting there eating dinner with my dad and I go, ‘You know, man, I could live here. This is pretty cool.’”

Chalke would go back home and eventually retire from his job as a mathematician. It was then that he focused all of his time on playing the trumpet for a living. For the last five years or so, Chalke and wife, Monique, have lived in Banner Elk, performing here during the summer and fall months before heading south to play in Florida during the winter.

Recently, Chalke released his latest album, “Jazz in Thin Air,” showcasing the talent of local artists such as Jim Fleri on keyboards, Ben McPherron on bass, Michael Willis on drums and Rob Falvo on vibes. Also featured on the album is Keith McCutcheon, who plays keyboards on the one live cut on the project, a fun and counter-intuitive nine-minute version of “Georgia” recorded at a concert last June at Eagle’s Nest on the backside of Beech Mountain.

Chalke and crew, known as BE Jazz, do not play pop jazz or light jazz, but instead stay true to the atmospheric grooves of the bebop period of 60 and 70 years ago.

“I’m stuck on that era,” said Chalke. “We play almost all jazz from the 1940s and 1950s. We will play some modern things, like more modal music by Herbie Hancock and Freddie Hubbard. But, we’re playing sort of the core bebop repertoire of the ‘40s and ‘50s, which really came out of the show tunes of Broadway. What the guys were doing back then was taking songs by Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Rogers and Hart and turning them into jazz tunes. That is, in some ways, the high point of American jazz. They were taking tunes that everybody knew the melody of and making them cool.”

“Jazz in Thin Air” features cuts such as “Bernie’s Tune,” “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” “My Funny Valentine” and the swinging “Groovin’ High.” Chalke and BE Jazz play these songs and more every Wednesday at the Sushi Club in Banner Elk and other venues around the area.

What was special about this recording session is that the band laid down the cuts live with no overdubs, which truly takes a group effort and reflects how things were done in the early days of jazz.

“For this album, we did all live recordings,” said Chalke. “We didn’t lay down the drum track and the piano track separately. We did it live because my philosophy is that jazz is all about the groove and the feel of the moment. If you are laying down one track at a time, you’re not interacting. It feels sterile to me. The riskiness of that is — do you know how many times you have to do a cut until you get it where everyone is happy? But that is exactly how they did it back in the day. There are a few little mistakes here and there, but I think that is all a part of doing a live recording. It adds character to it, I think.”

“Jazz in Thin Air” can be purchased at the band’s live shows and at www.be-jazz.com.