Maurice Brown

[montg]

That's the claim in today's Chicago Tribune by Howard Reich. Absolutely glowing report on this 23-year-old from Chicago (now based in New Orleans). You can check out some MP3s at his web site and judge for yourself. I've listened to a couple so far--I find the evidence inconclusive at this point, but I've got more to listen to.

Mauricebrown.net

[Rooster_Ties]

FYI, here's the article...

Hardscrabble Harvey's Maurice Brown making big splash in the Big Easy

By Howard Reich

Tribune arts critic

Published April 18, 2004

NEW ORLEANS -- As the long black Cadillac glides down Frenchmen Street -- an age-old road barely wide enough to accommodate it -- everyone seems to know who's sitting behind the steering wheel.

"There he is -- there's Maurice," says one of the tattooed, T-shirted Gen-Yers hanging on Frenchmen, where music clubs stretch for more than three blocks.

"There's the man," adds Jason Patterson, who books the talent at Snug Harbor, the city's top jazz room and the epicenter of Frenchmen Street culture.

"You can tell Maurice is coming from a block away."

Even if the gleaming, 1989 Caddy Brougham didn't announce his arrival, Maurice Brown's outsize personality, fabulously elegant clothes and -- above all -- clarion trumpet calls might. For the young man from hardscrabble Harvey, Ill., -- a tough town south of Chicago -- has transformed himself into a kind of neon sign on wheels.

Showing promise

More important, in the nearly three years since he moved here, Brown -- according to even the most skeptical, hard-to-please observers -- has become a center of gravity in New Orleans music. Playing street parades in the midday, club gigs at night and jam sessions till dawn, he may be not only the hardest working man in Crescent City show business but far and away the most promising.

In a city that has given the jazz world such trumpet deities as Louis Armstrong and Joe "King" Oliver at the start of the 20th Century and Wynton Marsalis and Nicholas Payton at the end, many music lovers are saying that Maurice Brown is next.

"Except that I'm really from Chicago," says Brown, after stepping out of the second black Cadillac he has owned in his 23 years.

Regardless of geography, however, the locals have flipped for "Chi-Town Maurice Brown," as he was known when he arrived in 2001, before acquiring his latest sobriquet: "Mo' Better Maurice Brown."

"As soon as he got here, he was hot," says Geraldine Wyckoff, a veteran New Orleans music journalist who writes for OffBeat Magazine and other Louisiana publications.

"He's the guy in New Orleans right now," says Patterson, who gave Brown one of the most coveted engagements in the city: a weekly stint at Snug Harbor, an honor typically reserved for New Orleans musical royalty, such as jazz pianist Ellis Marsalis (Wynton's father) and R&B vocalist Charmaine Neville (of the Neville family dynasty).

"I think Maurice is what we all have been looking for," says Alvin Batiste, the eminent New Orleans clarinetist and jazz educator who taught Brown briefly at Southern University, in nearby Baton Rouge. "We're looking forward to Maurice creating something we've never heard before."

Though the praise may sound extravagant, and though Brown still has a long way to go before his emerging art can be evaluated alongside that of his elders, his progress since leaving Chicago in 2001 has been nothing less than extraordinary.

On a recent evening at Snug Harbor, he led his quintet in one excoriating performance after another, unleashing not only a torrent of sound but also some of the most technically nimble, harmonically adventurous, rhythmically combustive solo work to have been played by an under-25 jazz trumpeter in the past 40 years.

Turning point for jazz

For all that, however, he knows he's entering jazz at a precarious moment in its history, when most of the major record labels have cut back on the music and the business has shrunk significantly since the heyday of, say, Clifford Brown, one of his heroes.

"Yeah, it's a little bit of a depressing time, since all the record labels are looking for the next Norah Jones," says Brown, referring to the vocalist whose popular success indeed has persuaded record companies to focus on commerce more than art.

"But I'm taking it in stride. I don't think people are stupid. Real music, honest music can't be denied."

If anyone can prove that a new jazz talent can make himself heard, even today, it may be Brown, for he already has built a following in the face of considerable obstacles.

Everything that Brown has achieved since he picked up the trumpet in 5th grade, at Markham Park Elementary School, in fact, has been hard-won, the results of a ferocious work ethic inspired by hard times.

"We didn't have a lot of money, but I sure got a lot of family attention," recalls Brown, whose father worked as a service technician on home appliances, his mother staying home to take care of Maurice and his younger sister, Charise.

At age 10, Maurice and the other 5th graders at Markham were led into a band room and instructed to pick out instruments, but Maurice didn't reach for what he really wanted -- a large, dark-gold saxophone -- presuming his parents couldn't afford it.

So he grabbed the smaller trumpet and found "I had a natural love for the instrument," he remembers. "As soon as I put the trumpet to my lips, I was making a sound."

Marsalis workshop

But not much more, for Brown paid scant attention to his horn until he attended a workshop given by Wynton Marsalis in a South Side Chicago church, around 1995. Though many kids were invited onstage to play briefly with Marsalis, Brown unfurled chorus after chorus, he remembers, with Marsalis afterward encouraging him to buckle down and start working to develop his talent.

"After that," claims Brown, "it was 14 to 16 hours a day of religiously practicing."

But why jazz, an art form that demands enormous discipline and sacrifice from musicians, without much promise of anything resembling a decent wage?

"Because I was always impressed by jazz," says Brown. "More than any other style, it's more difficult to play and more expressive. Anyone can learn to read music, but not everyone can learn to play jazz."

Though Brown never received a private trumpet lesson -- and hasn't, to this day -- he began to develop a leonine technique through sheer will and talent. Imitating CDs he played repeatedly, rehearsing trumpet drills until the neighbors begged for relief, Brown in a couple of years developed such technical command of the horn that, by the time he entered Hillcrest High School in Country Club Hills, his reputation preceded him.

"I'd play tapes of Maurice for the other band directors," says Keith Anderson, Hillcrest's music director, "and they'd say to me, `Geez, that's a sophomore? No way a kid could play like that.'

"But he did."

Indeed, when Brown started gigging around Chicago in his teens, listeners wondered where a talent of his caliber could have come from, unbidden, unannounced, unheralded.

At Alexander's Steak House, on the South Side, in August 1999, he played with the old Jazz Masters band and brought to his trumpet an impressive knowledge of the vast sweep of jazz history. The palpable brilliance of his tone, the barely contained aggression of his swing rhythm and the ineffably poetic lyricism of his balladry added up to perhaps the strongest debut of a jazz trumpeter since Nicholas Payton begin playing around New Orleans as a teenager, in the late 1980s.

Father injured on job

But Brown had more motivation than many of his colleagues, in part because his father had been badly injured at work, when he was helping to move a freezer down a flight of stairs. His partner let go, the massive object crashed onto his back and two surgeries have not yet relieved his pain. Unable to work ever since, Charles Brown found himself strapped for cash.

"Maurice helped us out financially quite a bit back then," says Charles Brown.

Adds Maurice Brown, "I definitely didn't have the luxury of laying around. I was playing constantly around Chicago, not only because I wanted to but because I had to -- we needed the money."

That apprenticeship sharpened Brown's performance skills and bolstered his reputation, with music schools across the country urging him to accept full scholarships. But while he was trying to balance a frenetically busy performance schedule in Chicago with classes at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Brown received a call from the great trumpeter Clark Terry, who invited him on the road.

"I really took a liking to Maurice," recalls Terry. "He was all ears, constantly taking in all the information around him."

New type of improvisation

But Brown was just getting started. In 2001, he headed to Southern University, in Baton Rouge, to study with the formidable clarinetist and musical theorist Alvin Batiste, who introduced Brown to a new system of improvisation. Batiste calls it "root progression," and, in essence, it shows improvisers how to break free of standard chord progressions without veering into the seeming anarchy of the "free jazz" players.

"After a little while, you really could hear him going in new directions," says Batiste.

"He also started getting away from what he had heard of the master trumpet players and play more of Maurice, more of his own sound."

Armed with Batiste's insights and his own growing mastery of the theory underlying the elusive art of improvisation, Brown in January 2002 felt ready to head home but decided to swing through New Orleans on his way back. Something about that city -- its easygoing tempo, its deep cultural roots and perhaps, above all, its century-plus veneration of the trumpet -- persuaded him to stay, at least momentarily.

"It's the whole feeling I got here that made me want to stay for a while," says Brown, who also leads a funk band he calls Soul'd U Out.

"I drive through this town, and I think, `Wow -- Louis Armstrong walked these streets and breathed this air.'

"The place is just so soulful -- the music, the food, the people."

Brown now clearly stands at a turning point. It won't be long until some shrewd record executive signs him, a booking agency sends him around the world and the media discovers the jazz phenomenon of the moment.

How well Brown will be able to withstand the attention is something even he may not know.

Not rushing to New York

At the very least, though, his reluctance to rush into a move to New York, where he believes musicians often try to chase "the next hip thing" rather than nurture an aesthetic of their own, suggests a savvy beyond his years.

Judging by his recent show at Snug Harbor, he continues to blossom at a remarkable rate. His compositions -- from the ebullient and danceable "It's a New Day" to the high-flying, extraordinarily sophisticated "Rapturous" -- point to an artist in the first bloom of potentially important work.

"You know what I hope for?" asks his father, Charles Brown.

"I'd like to turn on the radio one day and hear my son Maurice playing, and hear the announcer say, `That was Maurice Brown.'

"That's all I want, so I keep telling him to take his time, don't rush into anything.

"It's not about the money," continues Maurice Brown's father, who, like his son, never has had a great deal of it.

"It's about the music, and I want people to hear it."

That much, at least, seems inevitable.

- - -

Where to find Maurice Brown

CHICAGO

7:30 p.m., May 24, performing as part of Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble; HotHouse, 31 E. Balbo Drive; phone 312-362-9707.

NEW ORLEANS

9 p.m. every Tuesday, leading the Maurice Brown Quintet; also, hosting post-midnight jam sessions during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, April 23, 24, 30 and May 1; Snug Harbor, 626 Frenchmen St., New Orleans; phone 504-949-0696.

ONLINE

For a full lineup of Brown's schedule and other information, visit www.mauricebrown.net.

[Rooster_Ties]

Judging from the clips on his website, he sounds like maybe a 'good' player - sure, I'll grant him that.

But... "some of the most technically nimble, harmonically adventurous, rhythmically combustive solo work to have been played by an under-25 jazz trumpeter in the past 40 years" ...sounds pretty damn hyperbolic to me.

Lee Morgan turned 25 in 1963 (about 40 years ago), so probably this critic is trying to say that this kid is the best new young trumpet player to come on the scene since Morgan (would be my guess).

But, hell, Woody Shaw turned 25 only 34 years ago (in '69). So, what, this kid's better than Woody was all through the 60's??

Yeah, right.

[kh1958]

I saw this fellow play with Roy Hargrove at the Jazz Gallery last fall, and he sounded like a good young player, but nowhere near as good as Roy.

[Rob C]

He played last year's Chicago Jazz Fest with Roscoe Mitchell's big band and a bebop jam. I was very impressed by his playing in both instances, and by the fact that he functioned so well in both contexts. One notable trait, to me, was that he wasn't afraid to leave some space in his playing. I'm looking forward to hearing more from this guy.

[relyles]

I heard Brown on Fred Anderson's CD. He is good and has promise, but nothing I heard was particularly remarkable at this point.

[montg]

"I drive through this town, and I think, `Wow -- Louis Armstrong walked these streets and breathed this air.'

At the very least, though, his reluctance to rush into a move to New York, where he believes musicians often try to chase "the next hip thing" rather than nurture an aesthetic of their own, suggests a savvy beyond his years.

Judging by his recent show at Snug Harbor, he continues to blossom at a remarkable rate. His compositions -- from the ebullient and danceable "It's a New Day" to the high-flying, extraordinarily sophisticated "Rapturous" -- point to an artist in the first bloom of potentially important work.

I'm excited to hear something from him too. The MP3s sound good and it seems as though, from the quotes above, he's got a lot of maturity.

Sometimes I think the hype, like 'best in 40 years', can do more harm than good as it can bring about a backlash. To me, though, it's always a cause for rejoicing when a young player who has chops, ideas, and LOVES JAZZ, comes onto the scene. Jazz demands an aesthetic motivation that a lot of aspirants, looking for the dough and women, miss. IMO

[Joe M]

I don't know. The MP3's don't sound bad, but maybe that's not the best way to judge his playing. All I know is, jazz journalists like to use a little hyperbole now and then, it makes for a more interesting story than "another young trumpeter is on the scene, playing post bop jazz..."

[Tom Storer]

I'm sure Maurice Brown is very talented, but this article sounds exactly like the excited fawning that went on over James Carter just as he was about to burst on the scene. Carter is talented, too, but way overrated as far as I'm concerned.

The "best in 40 years from a trumpeter under 25" proclamation sounds remarkably like a certain other journalist talking about a certain other trumpeter 14 or 15 years ago... I wonder if Howard Reich wants to be Maurice Brown's Stanley Crouch? ;-)

[montg]

The hype in the 80s and 90s led to recording contracts on the major labels, arguably before some of those guys were ready. WIth the state of the business the way it is today, it's unlikley that'll happen to Mr. Brown.

[sal]

Check out the most recent CD by Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble titled "Mean Ameen". Maurice Brown absolutely kills on this one.

[johnagrandy]

Have you seen this guy's website ? Hawking lots of girlie Ts, teddy bears, and panties (!)

I think this kid's got a nose for the money ... uh, how come the name "Chris Botti" just popped into my head ?

I find his playing to be on the boring side ...

But he's obviously talented and best of luck to him ...

.... however, "best in 40 years from a trumpeter under 25" ??? That's got to be the most absurd overstatement made by any jazz critic ... ever. Howard Reich ? Who is this guy ? Has he even made a stab at the most remedial study of the history of jazz trumpet ?

I'm listening to Woody on Larry Young's Unity almost every day. Every track still blows me away after hundreds of listenings. How old was Woody on that session? 20.

And I met a very young keyboard/organ guy the other day who pretty much knew nothing about jazz trumpet ... but he totally lights up when I ask him if he's heard of Woody Shaw and says that after he heard him on Unity (an album which I'm beginning to believe that every keyboardist owns) he went out and bought all sorts of obscure Woody stuff like Blackstone Legacy and the Andrew Hill dates. He puts Woody up in the same category as Coltrane.

Plus ... there's (not so young) dudes like Peck Allman and Brian Lynch in NYC playing great trumpet ... not to mention more famous names like Dave Douglas, Eddie Henderson ... and Randy Brecker still plays fantastic !

How come everyone's always looking a little bit too hard for the next teenage trumpet phenom, like they did with Wynton ??

Edited May 27, 2005 by johnagrandy

[CJ Shearn]

he sounds ok, nothing spectacular. just hit his site and was greeted with a smooth tune doesn't mix with the other tracks on the CD in a good way, unfortunately.

[maren]

Haven't heard Maurice Brown, but as far as young trumpeters go, Jumaane Smith is pretty exciting:

Photo from the 2001 Vision Festival, with this caption: "Drumming revolutionist Rashied Ali continued to draw inspiration from formidable young talent such as trumpeter Jumaane Smith, who pushed Ali's Prima Materia to the brink with his impassioned blowing."

He's currently playing in the Rashied Ali quintet, also concentrating on composing. Studied at Juilliard -- with Wynton Marsalis. I have to say, hearing Jumaane Smith play and observing the depth, substance and lack of hype in his approach to establishing a career -- well, maybe the credit is all due to Smith himself (and his parents, and his earliest teachers) -- but to my mind it likely reflects very well on Wynton as a teacher.

I guess this post kind of reads like a manager's hype! But it's not.

[AllenLowe]

guys, don't you remember? Reich is an idiot. He writes from the bizarro world - whatever he writes, just assume the oppposite is true -

[AllenLowe]

and just for an udpate - this is not Richard Reich, or Sam Reich - it's Howard Reich - otherwise known as the Third Reich -

[sal]

Its funny seeing what people are writing when its obvious that many haven't heard anything by this cat, aside from maybe a sound clip. Listen to the new Ernest Dawkins CD, or the Fred Anderson disc "Back at the Velvet Lounge" and I challenge you to call him "boring". He does his funk/hip hop stuff as well as jazz....does every trumpeter have to play strictly run-of-the-mill bop orientated music to not be branded as one who is chasing the almighty dollar? These young cats have grown up exposed to a much larger music pool. When the older guys were growing up, cultural distances were so much greater but now that's no longer the case. These new guys have a cornucopia of new sounds coming out of their music. Its just the way things are now a days. And don't even use him in the same sentence as Chris Botti....obviously you have no idea what you are talking about. Criticism for having a line of women's panties? I bet you wouldn't be hating if women were wearing panties with your name on them.

[AllenLowe]

ben there, done that - after all, it's only underwear -

[johnagrandy]

Sal, Randy Brecker was playing incredible jazz trumpet and incomparable funk trumpet over 25 years ago ... so what's your point ? Cats in the SF Bay Area like Charlie Hunter starting mixing all kinds of genres together easily over 10 years ago and even Sco jumped onto jam band jazz scene for a few years. But none of them are hawking panties on their websites.

As for myself, why would I would want a bunch of random chicks I never met wearing panties with my name printed on them? So they're with their boyfriend on a hot romantic night and then at the critical moment when the dude is removing the panties he sees MY name? Sorry. That doesn't appeal to me. Not at all. Not in the slightest.

However, I think it appeals quite a bit to dudes like Tommy Lee of Motley Crue or any G'nR/Velvet Underground or L.A. Guns member or Kid Rock or Snoop Dog or 50 Cent ...and that's why I see Brown selling all this "I wanna be worshipped by the babes" as pure commercial "sellout grab-the money-and-run 'cause I got some good press" ... he is presenting an image not befitting of a truly serious jazz musician. He's young, he made a mistake.

As for whether Maurice Brown's trumpet playing kills like you say he does, yeah, maybe I should check him out live ...

But maybe I'll just stick to Duane Eubanks who sounds to me like he's got the real goods and is on the road to becoming a player with really original ideas and style. But it ain't gonna happen overnight -- no matter how famous his brothers are -- but I'll stick with him.

As for your comment "obviously I have no idea what I'm talking about" .... uh, hey, Sal, I'll bet I've forgotten more about the history of jazz trumpet than you'll ever know. Are you a betting man? You wanna lay some money on that ?

BTW. Chris Botti studied with none other than my personal hero, Mr. Woody Shaw ... then he says that he decided Chet and Miles were more his style ... and that's his justification for playing the sugary crap that clueless "beautiful" women who know nothing about jazz but love pretty-boy dyed-blonde fake-curly hair fall for. "When I Fall In Love" ... uh, Chris, how often does that happen? After every concert? Of course, the kind of money Sting pays for a tour probably also figured into the equation ... don't you think?

Edited May 31, 2005 by johnagrandy

[John L]

I haven't heard enough of Brown to form my own opinion, but I really don't see any reason to get hung up on what public image a "truly serious jazz musican" should be projecting. Let's judge him on the basis of the music that he produces.

[gdogus]

As for myself, why would I would want a bunch of random chicks I never met wearing panties with my name printed on them?  [snsip]  I think it appeals quite a bit to dudes like Tommy Lee of Motley Crue or any G'nR/Velvet Underground or L.A. Guns member or Kid Rock or Snoop Dog or 50 Cent ...

"G'n'R/Velvet Underground"?

[AllenLowe]

actually, on my website you can order "Al's stay-free maxi pads" embroidered with my name - let the boyfriend deal with that one -

[John L]

actually, on my website you can order "Al's stay-free maxi pads" embroidered with my name - let the boyfriend deal with that one -

←

I've seen those: "Allen Lowe: I Cover the Waterfront"

[Jim Alfredson]

However, I think it appeals quite a bit to dudes like Tommy Lee of Motley Crue or any G'nR/Velvet Underground or L.A. Guns member or Kid Rock or Snoop Dog or 50 Cent ...and that's why I see Brown selling all this "I wanna be worshipped by the babes" as pure commercial "sellout grab-the money-and-run 'cause I got some good press" ... he is presenting an image not befitting of a truly serious jazz musician.  He's young, he made a mistake.

←

sigh

[AllenLowe]

I also have the Lowe's friendly Hemorrhoid Cream - but it's on backorder -