Born in 1930 in Wilmington, Delaware, hard bop jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown was an extraordinarily sensitive musician and a superb technician. One of the brightest stars of the early 1950s, Brown’s career was on the rise in every respect when the jazz world was shocked by his tragic death in a car crash in 1956.
Brown’s father, himself an amateur musician, gave Clifford a trumpet at age 15, and he was soon playing in college and other youth bands. By his late teens, Brown was performing in Philadelphia with well-known jazz artists such as Miles DAVIS and Fats Navarro, and had become a familiar face on the New York bop scene. In 1948, he entered Maryland State University to study music, but was nearly killed in a car accident and spent almost a year recovering in the hospital. Encouraged to resume playing by Dizzy GILLESPIE and others, Brown made his first records with Chris Powell and Tadd Dameron in 1952.
In 1953, Clifford Brown went on tour in Europe with Lionel Hampton’s band, which was attracting much attention because of its exciting new talents. During this tour, many of the young musicians defied Hampton’s ban on making individual recordings. Brown sneaked out of a Stockholm hotel by the fire escape to record with fellow-American trumpeter Art Farmer. He also recorded in Paris. These sessions are preserved on the albums Clifford Brown in Paris and Stockholm Sweetnin’ (both 1953). When Hampton heard of this on returning to the U.S., Brown and most of the rest of the band were fired for breach of contract.
Clifford Brown recorded with Sarah VAUGHAN and briefly appeared with Art BLAKEY’S quintet in 1954, recording the memorable live albums A Night at Birdland, Volumes 1 and 2, before joining up with legendary drummer Max ROACH to form the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet. One of the finest jazz groups of the 1950s, the quintet also included pianist Ritchie Powell (brother of Bud POWELL), bassist George Morrow, and, at different times, saxophonists Sonny Stitt, Harold Land, and Sonny ROLLINS. Brown’s recordings with Roach are generally thought to be among his finest. Brown was soon regarded as a major trumpeter and composer, and was chosen as Down Beat magazine’s New Star of the Year in 1954. Sadly, Brown and Powell died in a road accident while driving between venues on a nationwide tour.
Brown’s airy, joyous music incorporated formal elements of swing into a mature bop style. He had great technique and stamina, an exhaustive range, and tremendous versatility, able to solo accurately at a Parkeresque 300 beats per minute, or state a ballad melody with breathtaking emotional directness.
The ensemble sections of Clifford Brown’s arrangements often emulated swing, but with a consciously modern jazz approach in that only one instrument of each type was used, rather than sections of each. Although not a prolific composer of “heads” (melodies used as a basis for jazz improvisation), Brown is now remembered most widely for his unusual composition “Joy Spring.” The chord changes of “Joy Spring,” like those of countless bop heads, are loosely derived from George GERSHWIN’S “I Got Rhythm,” but the melody is complex and thoroughly original. This and other compositions, such as “Daahoud” and “Sandu,” now form part of the standard jazz repertoire. Clifford Brown’s playing influenced Lee MORGAN, who died in 1972, and lives on in the work of trumpeters Freddie HUBBARD, Wynton MARSALIS, and Charles Tolliver.
Joseph Goldberg
SEE ALSO:
BEBOP; COOL JAZZ; HARD BOP; JAZZ; SWING.
FURTHER READING
Goldberg, Joe. Jazz Masters of the 1950s (New York: MacMillan, 1965);
Wilson, John Stuart. Jazz: The Transition Years, 1940–60 (New York: Da Capo Press, 1983).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Clifford Brown and Max Roach Inc.; Clifford Brown and Max Roach Live at Basin Street; Jazz Immortal; Live at the Bee Hive in Chicago, Vols. 1 and 2; Pent-Up House; “What Is This Thing Called Love?”.