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Marion Brown


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Heavy loss.

I sometimes do wonder why a foregoing 40 or so years of free altos often lack so much personality--what a collection of beautiful oddballs in those first steps: Brown, Tchicai, Logan, Marshall Allen, Jimmy Lyons, Charles Tyler, to say nothing of Ornette... although the arc of Brown's career is kind of a testament to how the now-hallowed trappings of energy music were really just incidental to these amazing stores and certainly not the full picture. He essayed some of the very best music of the post-Coltrane mode (Why Not, Porto Novo, etc.) and went on to invent and reinvent his career in a way that is legitimately mindblowing--running parallel to the AACM in an amazing ethno/free mix (Afternoon of A Georgia Faun, the duets with Wadada, some of the Calig stuff), crafting interesting inside/out modal music (Sweet Earth Flying)... I have to confess that I'm not completely enamored with the last 1/4 or so of his recorded legacy, but that tone is true and the sheer, lovely stasis in his tone never left (which I think may have been the emotional core of his sound). Even if he hasn't really produced in the past couple of decades, there was so much music in the past and so much music clearly still in there--as a part of his person--that the loss is so profound.

Heavy loss.

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I'm very sorry to hear this. As an Atlantan, I always loved that Brown's Georgia roots informed so much of his music - the blusiness of "Buttermilk Bottom" (his tribute to a now-defunct Atlanta neighborhood, "Afternoon of a Georgia Faun's" ethereal nostalgia, the country-informed "Sweet Earth Flying." He was a deep thinker, an outstanding composer, and he had an original, distinctive playing/improvising style on alto. So long, Marion.

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He was a speaker (and possibly in residence, but I don't remember exactly) at a "History of Jazz" class I took in college in the 70s. Some of my first exposure to jazz and very influential. One of our assignments was to listen to and critique "Afternoon of a Georgia Faun" - eye opening to say the least.

RIP, Marion.

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That's terribly sad news!

Marion was a very good friend.

He confronted his ordeal in his final years with dignity and courage. It was good to learn that he felt happy - and was very well treated - in the Florida assisted living facility where he moved after facing the health problems that changed his life.

I just hope that the packs of Gauloises Bleues cigarettes that he insisted I send him whenever we spoke on the phone brought him some relief and did not contribute to his passing away...

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you know, I was thinking recently how it might be nice to do a real study of '60s Free Jazz, and Brown epitomizes, to me, that music's ups and downs (to steal that Bud Powell title). When he was good he was great, but he's the classic example of no second act in certain creative lives. I love the interview, Cliff.

funny thing is, I forgot that Brown used to pass through New Haven, probably in the late '80s or early '90s, and one night he called me wanting to know about gigs in town.

nice guy.

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Eddy Gaumont was free and so out that I have no idea what became of him. A most promising drummer who bypassed the reputation that would have been coming to him.

He was Dominique Gaumont's brother. The guitar-playing Dominique who was hired by Miles Davis!

Then who was playing drums in Lugano 1967?

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Eddy Gaumont was free and so out that I have no idea what became of him. A most promising drummer who bypassed the reputation that would have been coming to him.

He was Dominique Gaumont's brother. The guitar-playing Dominique who was hired by Miles Davis!

Then who was playing drums in Lugano 1967?

the duo recording with mal is one of the most intimate and expressive recordings i have. among others, i escpecially love the beautiful solo extended standards of the 'recollections'.

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