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Clifford Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956), aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings. Nonetheless, he had a considerable influence on later jazz trumpet players, including Donald Byrd, Lee Morgan, Booker Little, Freddie Hubbard, Valery Ponomarev, and Wynton Marsalis.
Biography
Brown was born in Wilmington, Delaware. After briefly attending Delaware State University and Maryland State College (University of Maryland, Eastern Shore), he moved into playing music professionally, where he quickly became one of the most highly regarded trumpeters in jazz.
His style was influenced by Fats Navarro, sharing Navarro's virtuosic technique and brilliance of invention. His sound was warm and round, and notably consistent across the full range of the instrument. He could articulate every note, even at the high tempos which seemed to present no difficulty to him; this served to enhance the impression of his speed of execution. His sense of harmony was highly developed, enabling him to deliver bold statements through complex harmonic progressions (chord changes), and embodying the linear, "algebraic" terms of bebop harmony. As well as his up-tempo prowess, he could express himself deeply in a ballad performance. It is said that he played each set as though it would be his last.
He performed with Chris Powell, Tadd Dameron, Lionel Hampton, and Art Blakey before forming his own group with Max Roach. The Clifford Brown & Max Roach Quintet was a high water mark of the hard bop style. The group's pianist, Richie Powell (younger brother of Bud), contributed original compositions, as did Brown himself. The partnership of Brown's trumpet with Harold Land's tenor saxophone made for a very strong front line. Teddy Edwards briefly replaced Land before Sonny Rollins took over for the remainder of the group's existence. In their hands the bebop vernacular reached a peak of inventiveness.
The clean-living Brown has been cited as perhaps breaking the influence of heroin on the jazz world, a model established by Charlie Parker. Clifford stayed away from drugs and was not fond of alcohol.
In June 1956, Brown and Richie Powell were being driven from Philadelphia to Chicago by Powell's wife Nancy for the band's next appearance. While driving on a rainy night on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, west of Bedford, she lost control of the car and it went off the road. All three were killed in the resulting crash. He is buried in Mt. Zion Cemetery, in Wilmington, Delaware.
Tributes
Benny Golson, who had done a stint in Lionel Hampton's band with "Brownie" (as he was known in the jazz world), wrote "I Remember Clifford" to honour his memory. The piece became an instant standard, as musicians paid tribute by recording their own interpretations of it.
Helen Merrill, who recorded with Clifford Brown in 1954 (Helen Merrill with Clifford Brown, EmArcy), recorded a tribute album in 1995 entitled Brownie: Homage to Clifford Brown. The album features solos and ensemble work by trumpeters Lew Soloff, Tom Harrell, Wallace Roney, and Roy Hargrove.
Arturo Sandoval's entire second album after fleeing from his native Cuba, titled I Remember Clifford, was likewise a tribute to Brown.
Each year Wilmington, Delaware hosts the Clifford Brown Jazz Festival.
Delaware pianist Don Glanden produced a documentary of Clifford Brown's life entitled "Brownie Speaks". It was premiered at the "Brownie Speaks" Clifford Brown Symposium hosted by The University of the Arts, featuring performances from close friends and bandmates of Brown such as Benny Golson and Lou Donaldson and other prominent artists inspired by Brown such as Marcus Belgrave, Terence Blanchard, and John Fedchock.
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Clifford Brown
Early years
Started on trumpet at age 13
Schooling
Learned piano and rudimentary arranging in addition to trumpet
Obtained a music scholarship at the University of Delaware which had, at the time, no music department. Studied mathematics as a freshman
Attended Maryland State College, which had a good jazz band for which Clifford played and wrote
Professional life
Began sitting in on various gigs with jazz celebs such as Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, and Charlie Parker
Clifford was severely injured in a June, 1950 car accident and was hospitalized for almost a year Recording debut with R&B group Chris Powell's Blue Flames in March, 1952
Recorded with Lou Donaldson in '53
The band
Invited to play with Max Roach in November of 1953. This was the combo for which Roach and Brownie were best known
The end
Clifford, pianist Richie Powell and wife, were killed in a car accident during the early morning hours of June 26, 1956. They were on their way to meet Roach for a gig in Chicago when Powell's car, driven by his wife, skidded off the wet Pennsylvania Turnpike
Source: http://www.cliffordbrown.net/bio.html
Clifford Brown
Clifford Brown received his first trumpet from his father on entering senior high school in 1945 and joined the school band shortly afterward. It was not until a year or so later that the mysterious world of jazz chord changes and improvisation began to shed its veil for Brownie. A talented musician and jazz enthusiast named Robert Lowery was credited by Brownie for the unveiling.
The teen-aged trumpeter began playing gigs in Philadelphia on graduating in 1948. That same year, he entered the University of Delaware on a music scholarship, but there was one slight snag: the college happened to be momentarily short of a music department.
Brownie remained there a year anyway, majoring in mathematics, and taking up a little spare time by playing some Philadelphia dates with such preeminent bop figures as Kenny Dorham, Max Roach, J.J. Johnson and Fats Navarro. He acquired considerable inspiration and encouragement from Navarro, who was greatly impressed with the youngster's potentialities.
After the year at the University of Delaware, Brownie had a chance to enter a college that did boast a good music department, namely Maryland State. They also had a good 16-piece band, and he learned a lot about both playing and arranging until one evil evening in June 1950 when, on his way home from a gig, he was involved in the first of three automobile accidents, the last of which was to prove fatal.
For a whole year in 1950-51, Clifford Brown had plenty of opportunity for contemplation but precious little for improving his lip. It took just about a year, plus some verbal encouragement from Dizzy Gillespie, to set him back on the path from which he had been so rudely sideswiped.
He had his own group in Philly for a while, then joined the Chris Powell combo, with which he was working at Cafe Society when his first date with Lou Donaldson was cut. There followed a stint with Tadd Dameron in Atlantic city, after which he joined Lionel Hampton, touring Europe with him in the fall of 1953. In 1954 Brownie won the Down Beat critics' poll as the new star of the year. Moving out to California, he formed an alliance with Max Roach that was to last until death broke up the team.
Fortunately, it need not be said that Clifford Brown died unhonored or unsung. during his last two years, he enjoyed a degree of recognition almost commensurate with what he deserved. To point out that this recognition could have brought him to the pinnacle of jazz fame in a few years is to stress the obvious.
From the liner notes, Clifford Brown Memorial Album Blue Note
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Clifford Brown was born October 30, 1930 in Wilmington, Delaware. As a young high school student Brown began playing trumpet and within a very short time was active in college and other youth bands. By his late teens he had attracted the favourable attention of leading jazzmen, including fellow trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and Fats Navarro. At the end of the 40s he was studying music at Maryland University and in 1952, following recovery from a serious road accident, he made his first records with Chris Powell and Tadd Dameron. In the autumn of 1953 he was a member of the big band Lionel Hampton took to Europe. Liberally filled with precocious talent, this band attracted considerable attention during its tour. Contrary to contractual stipulations, many of the young musicians moonlighted on various recordings and Brown in particular was singled out for such sessions. Back in the USA, Brown was fired along with most of the rest of the band when Hampton learned of the records they had made. Brown then joined Art Blakey and in mid-1954 teamed up with Max Roach to form the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet. The quintet was quickly recognized as one of the outstanding groups in contemporary jazz and Brown as a major trumpeter and composer. On June 26th, 1956, while driving between engagements during a nationwide tour, Brown and another quintet member, pianist Richie Powell, were killed in a road accident.
The early death of musicians in jazz, and of talented artists in other fields, has often led to the creation of legends. Inevitably, in many cases the legend greatly exceeds the reality, and speculation on what might have been relies more upon the imagination of the recounter than upon any hard evidence. In the case of Clifford Brown, the reality of the legend is impossible to refute. At a time when many modern jazz trumpeters sought technical expertise at the expense of tone, Brown, in common with his friend and paradigm, Navarro, had technique to spare but also developed a rich, full and frequently beautiful tone. At the same time, whether playing at scorching tempos or on languorous ballads, his range was exhaustive. He was enormously and brilliantly inventive but his search for original ideas was never executed at the expense of taste. In all his work, Brown displayed the rare combination of supreme intelligence and great emotional depths. His playing was only one aspect of his talent; he was also a fine composer, creating many works that have become modern jazz standards. Although his career was brief,
Brown's influence persisted for a while in the work of Lee Morgan and throughout succeeding decades in that of Freddie Hubbard. Fortunately for jazz fans, Brown's own work persists in the form of his recordings, almost any of which can be safely recommended as outstanding examples of the very best of jazz. Indeed, all of his recordings with Roach are classics.Source: Encyclopedia of Popular Music
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Clifford Brown took up trumpet at the age of 13 and under the tutelage of his band director at high school, Harry Andrews, developed an extraordinary technical facility. While studying mathematics at Delaware State College and music at Maryland State College, he attracted attention through his exceptional performances with the college jazz bands and his brief appearances in Philadelphia with such leading jazz musicians as Fats Navarro, Dizzy Gillespie, and Charlie Parker, all of whom praised and encouraged him. Navarro's style was particularly important as a model for Brown and the two men formed a close friendship. Brown spent a year in the hospital after an automobile accident in June 1950, but thereafter resumed his career in Philadelphia, and in March 1952, made his first recordings with Chris Powell's Blue Flames. He joined Tadd Dameron's band for a recording session (the results of which were later issued as The Clifford Brown Memorial Album) and for appearances in summer 1953 at Atlantic City, New Jersey. In September of that year, Brown toured Europe with Lionel Hampton's big band and made a number of recordings with American and European jazz musicians; Hampton's trumpet section at the time consisted of Art Farmer, Quincy Jones, Walter Williams, and Brown, all of whom were superb players. On his return to the USA, Brown performed with several East Coast groups, including a newly formed ensemble led by Art Blakey. In 1954, with Max Roach, he formed the Brown-Roach Quintet, with which he was associated until he was killed two years later in an automobile accident. The quintet, whose other members were Harold Land (replaced in December 1955 by Sonny Rollins), George Morrow, and Richie Powell, was one of the most significant groups of the 1950s and had a major influence on the establishment of the style later known as hard bop.
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Clifford Brown (1930 - 1956)
Background:
Clifford Brown studied math at Delaware and music at the Maryland State College.
In 1950, he was hospitalized after a car accident.
He died in a tragic car accident, Tuesday, June 26,1956, while traveling from Philadelphia to Chicago.
Teachers/mentors:
Robert "Boysie" Lowery - "the classes"
"I didn't start him in a book" said Lowery, "I taught him how to hear."
Lowery also encouraged students to record their practice session. In the 1940's wire spool recorders existed. Clifford Brown became one of the first jazz players to use these devices.
Harry Andrews was hired as band director at Howard High. "I started him [Brown] on the Prescott system, which is based on the Arban's method" said Andrews."I also introduced him to the non-pressure system. He had been using a lot of pressure on putting his lips to the mouthpiece."
Performing career:
In Philadelphia, he performed together with Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Fats Navarro, whose style was a major influence on him. Later he played in Chris Powell's Blue Flames band.
In 1954, he formed the Brown-Roach quintet, together with drummer Max Roach.
In 1955, Sonny Rollins became a member of the group when he replaced Harold Land.
Trumpet practice:
Clifford used to practice a lot. LaRue had this recollection (page 154 in the Catalano book):
The legacy:
Clifford Brown is considered one of the most influential jazz trumpeters. Leonard Feather writes that he was "admired for his broad tone and strong attack; flawless execution in all registers and at all tempos; flowing, logical improvisations; and lyrical ballad playing."
By Nick Catalano: "Clifford Brown : The Life and Art of the Legendary Jazz Trumpeter"
On September 6th 1953, Brownie played in Norway. It was the first country outside U.S. and he was a member of the Linonel Hampton band.
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On this date Clifford Brown, an African-American jazz trumpeter, was born in October 30, 1930.
Born in Wilmington, DE, Brown attended Delaware State College and Maryland State College. He played in Philadelphia before joining, first, Tadd Dameron's band in Atlantic City, NJ, then Lionel Hampton's big band for a European tour, both in 1953. He then played with leading West Coast musicians and the Art Blakey quintet. In 1954, he and drummer Max Roach formed the Brown-Roach quintet, which quickly became one of the outstanding postwar jazz units.
From 1953, when Brown began recording frequently, his style was fully mature. Influenced by Fats Navarro, he developed an innate sense of solo form, a rich tone, and a virtuoso technique in all trumpet ranges. His style included brilliant high notes, high rhythmic detail, and a generous incorporation of grace notes and varied inflections, all of which he played with rare grace and ease. He was especially noted for the melodic qualities of his improvising, which often flowed in long phrases.
Most of his recordings are of consistently high quality, at his best in the Brown-Roach At Basin Street and Sonny Rollins Plus Four albums (both 1956). The jazz standard "Joy Spring" (1954) is one of the best-known songs that he wrote. Brown was the most influential trumpeter of his generation; the lyrical aspects of his music influenced many trumpeters, including Lee Morgan and Booker Little, and his technical brilliance especially influenced trumpeters such as Donald Byrd and Freddie Hubbard.
Clifford Brown was noted for lyricism, clarity of sound, and grace of technique. He was a principal figure in the hard-bop idiom.
Brown and Richie Powell, the quintet's pianist, died in an accident on June 26, 1956, on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Source: http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/1261/Clifford_Brown_jazz_trumpet_genius
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Clifford Brown Biography
Nick Catalano: Clifford Brown. The Life and Art of the Legendary Jazz Trumpeter. Oxford University Press, 2000, 208 p.
Nick Catalano, a University Performing Arts Director and Professor of Music and Literature at Pace University, who himself has not only taught and written about, but also played and produced jazz, e.g. as a writer-producer of films and documentaries for television, has written a notable biography on The Life and Art of Clifford Brown. The trumpeter was a role model for other musicians because he was clean-living and drug free. In this regard, he had an important influence on tenor saxophone player Sonny Rollins. Catalano covers the family background, the high school years and Clifford Brown's moves to Philadelphia, New York and California, the foundation of the Brown-Roach quintet and his collaborations with other famous musicians. The man and his music come alive. This biography is a tribute to an artist who died to early. It is based on interviews with Clifford Brown's family, friends and fellow jazz musicians.
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"Clifford was born Oct. 30, 1930, in Wilmington, Del., he received his first trumpet from his father upon entering senior high school in 1945, and joined the school band shortly afterward. It was not until a year or so later that the mysterious world of jazz chord changes and improvisation began to shed its veil for Brownie. A talented musician and jazz enthusiast named Robert Lowery was credited by Brownie for the unveiling.
"Brownie remained there a year anyway, majoring in mathematics, and taking up a little spare time by playing some Philadelphia dates with such preeminent bop figures as Kenny Dorham, Max Roach, J. J. Johnson and Fats Navarro. He acquired considerable inspiration and encouragement from Navarro., who was greatly impressed by the youngster's potential.
"After the year at Delaware State, Brownie had a chance to enter a college that did boast a good music program, namely Maryland State. They also had a good 16-piece band, and he learned a lot about both playing and arranging. One evil evening in June 1950, when, on his way home from a gig, he was involved in the first of three automobile accidents, the last of which was to prove fatal.
"For a whole year in 1950-51, Clifford Brown had plenty of opportunity for contemplation, but precious little for improving his lip. It took just about a year, plus some verbal encouragement from Dizzy Gillespie, to set him back on the path from which he had been so rudely sideswiped.
"He had his own group in Philly for a while, then joined the Chris Powell combo, with which he was working at Cafe Society when the [6/9/53] date with Lou Donaldson was cut. There followed a stint with Tadd Dameron in Atlantic City, after which he joined Lionel Hampton, touring Europe with him until the fall of 1953. In 1954 Brownie won the Down Beat critics' poll as the new star of the year. Moving out to California, he formed an alliance with Max Roach that was to last until death broke up the team." Liner notes, Memorial Album (Blue Note BST 81526)
Clifford Brown was killed in an automobile accident on June 26, 1956.
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Leonard Feather
"Born Oct. 30, 1930, in Wilmington, Del., he received his first trumpet from his father on entering senior high school in 1945 and joined the school band shortly afterward. It was not until a year or so later that the mysterious world of jazz chord changes and improvisation began to shed its veil for Brownie. A talented musician and jazz enthusiast named Robert Lowery was credited by Brownie for the unveiling.
"The teen-aged trumpeted began playing gigs in Philadelphia on graduating in 1948. That same year, he entered Deleware State College on a music scholarship, but there was one slight snag; the college happened to be momentarily short of a music department.
"Brownie remained there a year later anyway, majoring in mathematics, and taking up a little spare time by playing some Philadelphia dates with such preeminent bop figures as Kenny Dorham, Max Roach, J. J. Johnson and Fats Navarro. He acquired considerable inspiration and encouragement from Navarro, who was greatly impressed by the youngster's potentialities.
"After the year at Delaware State, Brownie had a chance to enter a college that did boast a good music program, namely Maryland State. They also had a good 16-piece band, and he learned a lot about both playing and arranging until one evil evening in June 1950, when, on his way home from a gig, he was involved in the first of three automibile accidents, the last of which was to prove fatal.
"For a whole year in 1950-51, Clifford Brown had plenty of opportunity for contemplation but precious little for improving his lip. It took just about a year, plus some verbal encouragement from Dizzy Gillespie, to set him back on the path from which he had been so rudely sideswiped.
"He had his own group in Philly for a while, then joined the Chris Powell combo, with which he was working at Cafe Society when the [6/9/53] date with Lou Donaldson was cut. There followed a stint with Tadd Dameron in Atlantic City, after which he joined Lionel Hampton, touring Europe with him until the fall of 1953. In 1954 Brownie won the Down Beat critics' poll as the new star of the year. Moving out to California, he formed an alliance with Max Roach that was to last until death broke up the team."
Liner notes, Memorial Album (Blue Note BST 81526)
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Bennie Golson
"Of course, no musicians walking on stage could believe it. Some covered their faces with their hands and said, `Oh no!' Everyone couldn't move with shock. With tears all over, Walter said, `Clifford Brown was killed in a car accident yesterday! Pianist Richie Powell and his wife also killed!' Still I can't believe it. I felt like almost fainted. That such a sweet guy should die in a car crash! That Richie Powell and his wife should die with him!
"Then the stage director shouted, `It's time, everyone! Play!' No one could do anything, although we took are seats, but of course we couldn't play. Dizzy somehow encouraged us, and the curtain was raised. Many of the musicians were crying while playing, and the music tended to be cut off from time to time. I said to myself, `This is a nightmare! It's a nightmare!' And I tried to awaken from the nightmare. But the next morning I found Brownie's death in the paper.
"For some time after that, all the musicians talked about was Clifford Brown."
Liner notes, Jams 2 (EmArcy 195 J 2)
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Quincy Jones"Clifford's self-assuredness in his playing reflected the mind and soul of a blossoming young artist who would have rightfully taken his place next to Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis and other leaders in jazz. The record companies owe it to the future of jazz to make every possible fragment of the beautiful musical gifts Clifford gave the world with unbounded love."
Liner notes, Jams 2 (EmArcy 195 J 2)
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"Clifford idolized Fats Navarro. That was his heart. And Dizzy was like a father to him; and Harry James. It tickled me, when I read that Blindfold Test [Leonard Feather] gave Clifford back then, that he didn't recognize Harry James. And he liked Rafael Mendez, who had a music book out, with which Clifford would practice by the hour.
"He was so well-rounded in all music. He liked Miles, Trane -- who was very young then -- and Louis Armstrong, and Lee Morgan, who spent alot of time with Clifford in Philly. Eric Dolphy was another good friend of ours.
"Music was his first love; I was his second, and math was his third. He was a wizard with figures and numbers; he used to play all kinds of mathematical games. He played chess well, and he played pool like crazy -- his family had always been very competitive with pool at home.
"He told me once that as a child he loved doughnuts, but there was never enough money for more than one a person, because he came from a large family. So whenever we were near a doughnut shop, he would by dozens -- they would get stale before he could eat them all.
"There was only one time I didn't travel with him. Our child, Clifford Jr., had been born, and I hadn't taken him home yet to see the family. So Clifford said okay, and he put us on the plane; and of course that was when he was in the car accident and was killed. It was our second wedding anniversary and my 22nd birthday."
Liner notes, The Paris Collection Vol. 2 (Inner City IC 7011)
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"Clifford Brown was a very beautiful person. He had a very warm personality and usually seemed so relaxed it made me relaxed to be around him. In my opinion Brownie had a very even temperament, if that's the best way to describe it, and a kind of wisdom or knowledge of himself and those around him, and of life in general, that one associates with someone quite a bit older than he was at the time. And to me these same qualities were evident when he expressed himself through his instrument. I have had moer than one talented musician say to me, referring to Brownie, that he played his instrument like a young old man! And in each instance I'm sure they meant this statement to be an extremely beautiful compliment, that a man so young in years could acquire such command, depth, and broad musical scope in such a relatively short span of time. Playing with the fire and creativeness of a young man with the depth, tenderness, and insight into past, present, and future of an older man."
Liner notes, Clifford Brown in Paris (Prestige PR 24020)
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"Clifford Brown was certainly a master and a major link in the history of the trumpet. This instrument has always had two kinds of stars; those who advance the mainstream evolution of the instrument and those who are of such unique proportions that they remain phenomena unto themselves with prehaps a few disciples. Miles Davis is indicative of the latter, but Brown is certainly a prime example of the former. Without Brownie, it would be hard to imagine the existence of Lee Morgan or Freddie Hubbard or Booker Little or Woody Shaw or Wynton Marsalis."
Liner notes, Alternate Takes (Blue Note BST 84428)
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By Matt Schudel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 26, 2006; Page C01
There may be no sadder tale in modern music than that of Clifford Brown. All but forgotten today outside a coterie of jazz buffs, he remains a heart-tugging example of what-might-have-been, as musicians and critics continue to debate the wonders he could have achieved, if only he had lived.
He was the most brilliant trumpet player of his generation, an original and memorable composer, a dynamic stage presence and, as everyone who knew him will tell you, a sweet and gentle soul.
"He had it all," says saxophonist Sonny Rollins, who spent seven formative months working alongside Brown.
Listen to any of his recordings -- fortunately, there are dozens, and they're all worth hearing -- and the liquid excitement of his trumpet leaps from the speakers, by turns bold and bright, tender and graceful.
But it was more than Brown's music that impressed those around him. Brown refused to use drugs, and his quiet example had begun to change the reprobate image of musicians, for whom booze and heroin were part of the jazz life.
For all these reasons, it was nothing less than an American tragedy when Clifford Brown was killed in an after-midnight car accident in Pennsylvania 50 years ago today. He was 25 years old.Any number of rock musicians, from Buddy Holly to Jimi Hendrix to Kurt Cobain, have died young, and classical fans have long speculated on the extinguished gifts of pianist William Kapell, who was killed in an airplane crash in 1953 at age 31. Jazz musician Charlie Parker was 34 when he died in 1955 after years of drug abuse, but by then he'd already made his lasting contribution, creating (with Dizzy Gillespie) the intricate musical language of bebop.
Still, there remains something tantalizingly poignant about Clifford Brown and his unfulfilled future. Decades later, the echoes of his barely tapped talent leave you longing for more.
"He was just like a shooting star," says Rollins. "He's there, and he's gone."
* * *
In 1948, Philadelphia saxophonist Jimmy Heath took his group to Wilmington, Del., to play at a club called the Two Spot. It was the first time he met Clifford Brown.
By then Brown, who grew up in Wilmington, had been playing the trumpet for five years. From the start, he was drawn to the exuberance and structure of jazz, and his model was Theodore "Fats" Navarro, who would die at 26 from tuberculosis and heroin addiction. From Navarro, Brown developed a full, or "fat," trumpet tone and learned to explore the expressive depth of the instrument's middle and lower registers.
After two years in college -- including one at what is now the University of Maryland Eastern Shore -- Brown was critically injured in a car wreck in 1950 that eerily foretold his later fate. He broke both legs, was in a full-body cast for months and underwent skin and bone grafts. When shoulder pain temporarily forced him to give up the trumpet during his long convalescence, he turned to the piano and was good enough to take a few jobs playing in lounges.
After regaining his trumpet chops, Brown was quickly recognized as a rising talent, and by 1953 he was making records in New York with top-tier jazzmen.
"When Brownie stood up and took his first solo," writer and record executive Ira Gitler once said, "I nearly fell off my seat in the control room. The power, range and brilliance together with the warmth and invention was something that I hadn't heard since Fats Navarro."
During the summer of '53, Brown was in an Atlantic City show band with saxophonist Benny Golson. "He was not a likable guy -- he was a lovable guy," Golson recalls. "I never heard him raise his voice in anger, I never heard him swear or tell a dirty joke."
About the worst that could be said of him was that he had a weak spot for doughnuts.
* * *
In the fall of 1953, Brown was touring Europe and North Africa with bandleader Lionel Hampton, who forbade anyone in his group to make records on the side. Despite the prohibition, Brown and other band members -- including future music mogul Quincy Jones -- sneaked away for several remarkable sessions at Paris studios. Hampton's manager reportedly threatened Brown with a knife, but the surreptitious Parisian recordings put Brown's picture on the cover of magazines and helped make him the biggest new star in jazz. He was better known (and considered a better trumpeter) than Miles Davis.
Brown made one of the first live jazz recordings, "A Night at Birdland," with drummer Art Blakey, then went to California, where he formed the two most important partnerships of his life. The first was with drummer Max Roach, and the other was with a University of Southern California music student named LaRue Anderson, who was writing a thesis on why jazz was not serious music. After meeting Brown, she changed her mind. They were married within a few months, on LaRue's 21st birthday.
Brown and Roach formed a quintet with tenor saxophonist Harold Land, bassist George Morrow and pianist Richie Powell (younger brother of piano giant Bud Powell), which quickly emerged as one of the most important groups of its time. The group helped forge a distinctive new style called "hard bop" -- refined, fiery and hard-hitting -- that sounds as exhilarating now as it did then.
"Hard bop is the predominant style of jazz played today," notes historian Phil Schaap, curator for Jazz at Lincoln Center. "The bar was set very, very high, and it certainly has not been eclipsed."
During his remarkable three-year run, Brown made more than a dozen albums -- among them "Study in Brown," "Brown & Roach Inc.," "Clifford Brown With Strings" and "At Basin Street" -- that are, quite simply, unsurpassed models of the art of jazz trumpet.
* * *
Brown was not a big man. At 5 feet 9, he had a quiet, guileless demeanor and, as a result of the car accident, walked with a limp -- yet something about him commanded respect. When Sonny Rollins joined the Brown-Roach Quintet in 1955, the tenor saxman was kicking a heroin habit, but Brown never lectured Rollins about drugs, never acted superior.
"Clifford was a clean-living person," says Rollins, who at 75 is the same age Brown would be today. "That was a tremendous influence on me, to see that a guy who could play at that high level was clean of drugs."
He was, in other words, mature beyond his years -- and his character and musicianship were beginning to shape the future of jazz, supplanting the drug-fueled model of Charlie Parker, who died the year before. As Roach once said: "He was capable of -- well, not to use an overworked word, but he was capable of great profundity."
That unrealized potential lies at the center of a persistent mystery about Clifford Brown. On Monday, June 25, 1956, after visiting his parents in Wilmington, he drove to Philadelphia and stopped at Music City, a jazz club where he often sat in on jam sessions. For years, jazz fans have been abuzz about an amateur recording that purported to capture his final performance.
A recording does exist of Brown playing three tunes, and he is astonishing. Critics have called those performances "a defining moment in trumpet history."
But Nick Catalano, author of "Clifford Brown: The Life and Art of the Legendary Jazz Trumpeter," says the legend of Brownie's Last Jam in Philly is just too good to be true. Citing a musician named Billy Root, a regular at Music City, Catalano unequivocally says the jam session
took place a year earlier, on May 31, 1955.
But Schaap, a jazz historian who has studied Brown's career as closely as anyone, says there is nothing -- aside from Root's statement -- to prove that the bootleg tape was made in 1955.
Whenever the tape was made, Brown was clearly in a buoyant mood at Music City that night and reaching for new musical heights. On the recording, he speaks from time to time and at one point complains about the heat.
If nothing else can be proved, this much can be said: On May 31, 1955, Philadelphia had a high temperature of 71 degrees; on June 25, 1956, it was 86.
Brown packed up his horn and left Philadelphia with pianist Richie Powell and Powell's wife, Nancy. They were headed for Chicago, where the quintet was to perform the following night.
Sometime after midnight, they pulled off the Pennsylvania Turnpike to buy gas in Bedford, Pa., about 120 miles east of Pittsburgh. It was raining. Soon afterward, with Nancy Powell at the wheel of Brown's 1955 Buick, the car missed a curve, smashed through a guardrail and hurtled down a 75-foot embankment. All three occupants were killed.
It was Brown's second wedding anniversary -- and his wife's birthday. (LaRue Brown died last year at 72.)
In Chicago, when word arrived that Brown and Powell were dead, Roach locked himself in a hotel room with two bottles of cognac.
As for Rollins, "I just picked up my horn and played all night."
They tried to keep the band going, but it wasn't the same.
"When Clifford left, the front line was broken," says Rollins. "Other players came to replace Clifford, but they couldn't do it."
For years, when Rollins was struggling during a performance, he knew a sure way to get through his problems. "When I wasn't playing too well," he says, "I would channel Clifford. That would focus my thoughts and my playing."
A few months after Brown's death, Benny Golson, who had known him in Philadelphia, paid tribute by writing the darkly beautiful "I Remember Clifford," one of the most haunting ballads of jazz.
The life of Clifford Brown may have ended in sadness, but his music endures, full of joy.
For samples of Brown's music -- "Joy Spring," "Sandu" and "What's New" –
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/music.
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As leader
Clifford Brown: Jazz Immortal (Pacific Jazz, 1954, Rudy Van Gelder remastering, 2001)
Memorial Album (Blue Note, 1953)
Brownie: The Complete EmArcy Recordings of Clifford Brown (Verve)
Clifford Brown (Verve; selections from Brownie)
Brown and Roach Incorporated (EmArcy, 1954)
Sarah Vaughan with Clifford Brown (EmArcy, 1954)
Study in Brown (EmArcy, 1955)
Clifford Brown and Max Roach (EmArcy, 1955)
At Basin Street (EmArcy, 1956)
The Clifford Brown Sextet in Paris {Prestige, 1953)
Clifford Brown with Strings (EmArcy, 1955)
The Clifford Brown Big Band in Paris (Prestige, 1953)
Daahoud (Mainstream Records, 1972)
Alone Together: The Best of the Mercury Years (Mercury, 1995)
As sideman
Art Blakey Quintet: A Night at Birdland Vol. 1, Vol. 2, & Vol. 3 (Blue Note, 1954)
J.J. Johnson: The Eminent J.J. Johnson Vol. 1 (Blue Note, 1953)
CompositionsJoy Spring
Daahoud
Bones for Jones
George's Dilemma
Gerkin for Perkin
Sandu
Swingin'
Tiny Capers
Brownie Speaks
LaRue
Blues Walk
All Weird
Goofin' With Me
Clifford’s Axe
I Should Have To Told You Goodbye
I’m the One
Jumpin’ the Blues
Long as You’re Living
The Best Thing for You Is Me
Two Hearts That Pass in the Night
When We’re Alone
Posts
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