Description
Clifford Brown was a jazz trumpeter who had a very successful career in the early to mid-1950s. He was known for his virtuosity and his ability to play R&B music. He was also a positive role model to other musicians, and his death in a car accident at the age of 25 may have had a significant impact on the future of jazz.
Although he died in a tragic car accident at twenty-five, Clifford Brown is widely considered one of the most important figures in the history of jazz--now, in this absorbing work, Nick Catalano gives us the first major biography of this musical giant. Based on extensive interviews with Brown's family, friends, and fellow jazz musicians, this is a fascinating portrait of a remarkable musician. Catalano colorfully depicts Brown's life, showing how he developed a dazzling technique that few jazz players have equaled. We read of his meteoric rise in Philadelphia, his tour of Europe with Lionel Hampton, and his formation of the Brown-Roach Quintet with prominent drummer Max Roach. The book also features an informed analysis of Brown's major recorded solos, highlighting his originality and revealing why he remains such a great influence today.
In the early '50s, Clifford Brown was one of the most dominant trumpeters of the Hard Bop period. Nick Catalano, professor of literature and music at Pace University, has written the first book on this important artist, and it's a winner. "In addition to his artistic achievements, Brown exuded virtue and magnanimity," Catalano writes. "He wasn't just a 'nice guy'; he was much more than that." At a time when jazzmen where generally portrayed as drug addicted hustlers, Brown was the exception. He was college educated, rarely smoked or drank, and was a positive role model to other musicians. Had he not been killed in a tragic car accident at the tender age of 25, he may have altered the future of jazz. As it is, he has left a lasting impression on the art form. Beginning with his nurturing childhood in Wilmington, Delaware, Catalano chronicles Brown's extraordinary rise as a Dizzy Gillespie-inspired upstart, to a seasoned professional who continued to practice and play R&B dates despite terrible pain from a near-fatal car accident. Catalano highlights Brown's work with heavyweights like Lionel Hampton, Quincy Jones, John Lewis, and Art Blakey, and his analyses of Brown's crisp trumpet style and compositions, including "Joy Spring" and "Dahooud," are detailed and entertaining. At the summit of his career, while co-leading a trailblazing combo that featured Max Roach and Sonny Rollins, Brown perished on the rain-soaked Pennsylvania Turnpike on the way to a gig in Chicago. Catalano shows that, even in death, his influence lives on in trumpeters like Freddie Hubbard and Wynton Marsalis, and in the Tony Award-winning Broadway play,
Sideman. If there is such a thing as a jazz saint, Clifford Brown was it.
--Eugene Holley Jr.
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