Clifford Brown | |
|---|---|
 Brownc. 1956 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Clifford Benjamin Brown |
| Born | (1930-10-30)October 30, 1930 Wilmington, Delaware, U.S. |
| Died | June 26, 1956(1956-06-26) (aged 25) Bedford, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer |
| Instrument(s) | Trumpet, piano |
| Years active | 1949–1956 |
Clifford Benjamin Brown[1] (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956) was an American jazz trumpeter, pianist and composer. He died at the age of 25 in a car crash,[2] leaving behind four years' worth of recordings. His compositions "Sandu", "Joy Spring",[3] and "Daahoud"[4] have becomejazz standards.[5] Brown won theDownBeat magazine Critics' Poll for New Star of the Year in 1954; he was inducted into theDownBeat Hall of Fame in 1972.[2]
Brown was born into a musical family inWilmington, Delaware. His father organized his four sons, including Clifford, into a vocal quartet. Around age ten, Brown started playing trumpet at school after becoming fascinated with the shiny trumpet his father owned. At age thirteen, his father bought him a trumpet and provided him with private lessons. In high school, Brown received lessons from Robert Boysie Lowery and played in "a jazz group that Lowery organized", making trips toPhiladelphia.[6]
His trips to Philadelphia grew in frequency after he graduated from high school. Brown briefly attendedDelaware State University[7] as a math major before he switched toMaryland State College. He played in the fourteen-piece, jazz-oriented Maryland State Band. In June 1950, he was injured in a car crash after a performance. While in the hospital, he was visited byDizzy Gillespie, who encouraged him to pursue a career in music.[8] For a time, injuries restricted him to playing the piano.[6][2]
Brown was influenced and encouraged byFats Navarro.[8] His first recordings were with R&B bandleaderChris Powell.[8] He worked withArt Blakey,Tadd Dameron,Lionel Hampton andJ. J. Johnson, before forming a band withMax Roach.
One of the most notable developments during Brown's period in New York was the formation ofArt Blakey's Quintet, which would become the Jazz Messengers. Blakey formed the band with Brown,Lou Donaldson,Horace Silver, andCurley Russell, and recorded the quintet's first album live at theBirdland jazz club. During one of the rehearsal sessions, fellow trumpeterMiles Davis listened and joked about Clifford Brown's technical ability to play the trumpet. The live recording session ultimately spanned two days with multiple takes needed on only a couple of the tunes.[1]
A week atClub Harlem in May 1952 featured alto saxophonistCharlie Parker and Brown. Brown later noted that Parker was impressed by his playing, saying privately to the young trumpeter "I don't believe it."[9]
Just before the formation of the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet, journalistNat Hentoff and Brown interviewed for aDownBeat article titled "Clifford Brown – the New Dizzy".[1]
Roach's stature had grown as he recorded with a host of other emerging artists (includingBud Powell,Sonny Stitt,Miles Davis andThelonious Monk) and co-foundedDebut, one of the first artist-owned labels, withCharles Mingus. Having participated in the legendary Jazz at Massey Hall concert of 1953, the drummer had relocated to the Los Angeles area and had replacedShelly Manne in the popular Lighthouse All Stars.[10] Roach and Brown formed the joint Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet in the mid-1950s with tenor saxophonistHarold Land, pianistRichie Powell, and bassistGeorge Morrow, with tenor saxophonistSonny Rollins taking Land's place in 1955.[11][2] Brown was in the L.A. area from March to August 1954, on the invitation of Roach, who arrived on the West Coast with other well-regarded jazz musicians includingMiles Davis andCharles Mingus.[12] Prior to their first outing, the 1954[13] Pasadena Auditorium Concert, Roach included Brown on the basis that the two would be co-leaders.[12]
The band started when Brown and Roach rented a studio in California. With Brown able to play piano and drums in addition to trumpet, the co-leaders could experiment extensively with these instruments in the studio. They settled on the standard bebop quintet of trumpet, saxophone, piano, bass, and drums, with sax, piano, and bass players needed. When first choice tenor player Sonny Stitt chose his own musical direction, the bandleaders settled on sax player Teddy Edwards, former Count Basie bassist George Morrow, and unconventional pianistCarl Perkins. Though the lineup was short-lived,[1] the group "sent shock waves throughout the jazz community," according to Sam Samuelson.[14]
As the band was still deciding on its personnel, Brown and Roach met alto player and multi-instrumentalistEric Dolphy, who had his own apartment where he hosted jam sessions. Among the jam sessions' musicians were future quintet members Harold Land and George Morrow.Bud Powell's brother Richie arrived in the L.A. area around this time and was recruited as the quintet's pianist. The band accepted recording session offers and Brown composed several tunes that were adopted by the new quintet. Meanwhile, a larger, fully arranged band was organized for one of the upcoming recording sessions byJack Montrose of Pacific Coast Jazz Records.[1] The session "embrace[d] West Coast cool" with "immaculately performed charts," according to reviewer Gordon Jack ofJazz Journal.[15]
An early session of the Brown/Roach Quintet,Clifford Brown & Max Roach, featured the new lineup performing several of Brown's latest compositions. Samuelson referred to the album as a "nice gamut between boplicity and pleasant balladry."[14] Other albums featuring the Brown/Roach collaboration includedBrown and Roach, Inc. andStudy in Brown.[16][17]
Brown also recorded albums outside the quintet including the Pacific Coast Jazz session and two albums with jazz vocalistDinah Washington. Both were recorded from a jam session setting and featured other jazz trumpeters includingMaynard Ferguson andClark Terry. Following the Dinah Washington recordings, Brown slowed the pace of his recordings and returned to the East Coast, recording an album withSarah Vaughan in December 1954.[1]
The experiments in bop continued in the 1955 sessionStudy in Brown, such as use of instrument sounds to mimic an inner city environment in "Parisian Thoroughfare" and "international flavor" in "George's Dilemma".[1] Jazz critic Scott Yanow referred to the album as "premiere early hard bop" and noted the quintet's "unlimited potential."[17]
A 1955 live performance by Brown withBilly Root and Ziggy Vines (sometimes mistakenly thought to have been recorded just before Brown's death a year later) was released on tape in 1973. Following this session, with Blakey temporarily replacing Roach following a car accident, the group toured, visiting Chicago and then Rhode Island for theNewport Jazz Festival. Roach returned for this performance and jam session at Newport.[1]
Released in 1956,At Basin Street – the quintet's final "official album" – introduced Rollins. The album was called a "hard bop classic" and "highly recommended" by Scott Yanow. While previous quintet albums included original compositions, this one consisted mainly of jazz standards, although it did include a couple of Richie Powell compositions.[18]
In June 1954, Brown married Emma LaRue Anderson (1933–2005), whom he called "Joy Spring". The two had been introduced by Max Roach. Clifford and LaRue celebrated their marriage vows three times, partly because their families were on opposite coasts and partly because of their different religious denominations – Brown wasMethodist and Anderson wasCatholic. They were first married in a private ceremony June 26, 1954, in Los Angeles (on Anderson's 21st birthday). They again celebrated their marriage in a religious setting on July 16, 1954, with the certificate being registered inLos Angeles County. A reception was held at the Tiffany Club where theArt Pepper/Jack Montrose Quintet had been replaced, a few days earlier, by theRed Norvo Trio withTal Farlow andRed Mitchell. Anderson's parish priest followed them toBoston where, on August 1, 1954, they performed their marriage ceremony at Saint Richards Church in theRoxbury neighborhood.[19]
Brown stayed away from drugs and was not fond of alcohol.[2] Rollins, who was recovering from heroin addiction, said that "Clifford was a profound influence on my personal life. He showed me that it was possible to live a good, clean life and still be a good jazz musician."[20] Brown's enthusiasm for practicing the trumpet was noted by Lou Donaldson, who said Clifford would "do lip exercises and mouth exercises all day."[9]
In June 1956, Brown andRichie Powell embarked on a drive to Chicago for their next appearance. Powell's wife Nancy was at the wheel so Clifford and Richie could sleep. While driving at night in the rain on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, she presumably lost control of the car which went off the road west ofBedford, killing all three in the resulting crash.[21] Brown is buried in Mt. Zion Cemetery, in Wilmington, Delaware.[22]
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Jazz historianIra Gitler said of Brown, "l'm sorry I never got to know him better. Not that it necessarily follows that one who plays that beautifully is also a marvelous person, but I think one can discern in Clifford Brown's case that the particular kind of extraordinary playing was linked to an equally special human being ... Photographs of Clifford Brown reveal some of that inner self; the shots in which he is depicted in a playing attitude show his intensity, that utter concentration and total connection with his instrument."[23]
In the 1990s, video from the TV programSoupy's On (starring comedianSoupy Sales, who was a big jazz fan and booked several top musical stars for his show) was discovered of Clifford Brown playing two tunes. This is the only video recording known to exist of Brown.[2]
Brown's nephew, drummer Rayford Griffin(né Rayford Galen Griffin; b. 1958), modernized Brown's music on his 2015 albumReflections of Brownie.[24] Brown's grandson, Clifford Benjamin Brown III (b. 1982), plays trumpet on one of the tracks, "Sandu".
Benny Golson composed "I Remember Clifford" in 1957 as a tribute to Brown, andJon Hendricks added lyrics.Dizzy Gillespie,Art Farmer,Bud Powell,Art Blakey, and Golson himself used the song to pay tribute throughout subsequent years.Arturo Sandoval dedicated an album,I Remember Clifford, to Brown in 1992.[25][26]
Posthumous releases
Box set
