Boyce Brown

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Boyce Brown , OSM ( Brother Matthew ), (born April 16, 1910 in Chicago , † January 30, 1959 in Hillside (Wisconsin) ) was an American saxophonist ( alto saxophone ) of Chicago jazz .

Live and act

Brown was considered an eccentric figure among Chicago musicians who did not follow their excessive lifestyle. He was introverted, lived with his mother, listened to classical music by Frederick Delius and Claude Debussy and read philosophy. As a child he was of poor constitution and received saxophone lessons to strengthen his breathing.

There were only a few recordings of him. First in 1935 with the Friars Society Orchestra of Paul Mares , who wanted to tie in with his New Orleans Rhythm Kings . He can be heard there with a solo in Nagasaki and in Maple Leaf Rag , Reincarnation , The Land of Dreams (i.e. Basin Street Blues). In March / April 1935 he recorded with Charles LaVere and his Chicagoans , which was published much later. In October 1939 he recorded in Jimmy McPartland's band for the Decca box Chicago Jazz (including a solo on China Boy , Jazz me Blues ). George Avakian emphasized his very individual, unorthodox interpretation in the liner notes and rates his solo as perfectly executed, fast, full of notes, but completely logical and admirably conceived. Even decades later, Avakian said in an interview that Brown's game amazed and blew him away . This was the peak of his career, and in 1940 he won the Down Beat readers' poll for alto saxophone. He recorded again in Chicago in 1940 (for Collector's Item, two pages I Surrender Dear and On a Blues Kick , with Wild Bill Davison , cornet, Mel Henke , piano, Walter Ross, bass, Joe Kahn, drums), and There are a few more recordings from the 1940s, partly unreleased (including a session conducted by Pete Daily and Frank Melrose , released as Bluesiana by Delmark) and partly lost (such as a 1945 Jimmie Noone Memorial Concert in Chicago for the label of John Steiner). Then he disappeared from the scene.

In 1952 he converted to Catholicism and in 1953 entered a monastery of the Servite Order near Granville (Wisconsin) as a monk ; In 1956 he took up again under the name Brother Matthew , with his accompaniment being organized by Eddie Condon ( Brother Matthew with Eddie Condon's Jazz Band , ABC Paramount, with Eddie Condon, who was in charge, but not himself for contractual reasons played, Ernie Caceres , Wild Bill Davison , Pee Wee Russell , George Wettling , Cutty Cutshall , Gene Schroeder , piano, Bob Casey , bass, Condon's brother-in-law Paul Smith, guitar). The photos with which he wanted to collect money for his monastery exist with Brown in a monk's robe. He died of a heart attack three years later.

He wrote poetry, one of which is with a drawing in Eddie Condon's Scrapbook of Jazz and is about excellent marijuana.

Brown could not see well and therefore played mostly in small groups. His habit of sticking his neck out like a bird while playing was one of the reasons he was not taken to audition for the Dorsey Brothers big band, and his habit of crossing himself before performing on irritated club owners.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ January 7th and 26th. Published by Okeh
  2. ↑ Boogaboo Blues, I'd rather be with you, Smiles, All too well, Urangi Man
  3. ↑ And The world is waiting for a sunrise , Sugar , with McPartland, cornet, [[Bud Jacobson (musician) |]], clarinet, Floyd Bean , piano, Dick McPartland , guitar, Jim Lanigan , bass, Hank Isaacs , drums
  4. ↑ Avakian on China Boy in the Liner Notes: perfectly executed, fast, full of notes, but completely logical and amazingly conceived . He continues Boyce is unlike any musician you have ever met, and this is a completely individual and unorthodox style. Take warning that Boyce will need a lot of listening. His complexity makes a casual hearing worthless. Careful attention will be rewarded by an understanding of the subtleties of Boyce's ideas, which are distinctively his own.
  5. ↑ People hearing him for the first time were just flabbergasted. I know what. Where did this guy get this odd way of playing? Where did it come from? . Interview for Richard Sudhalter's book Lost Chords
personal data
SURNAME Brown, Boyce
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brother Matthew (OSM, religious name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz saxophonist
DATE OF BIRTH April 16, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Chicago
DATE OF DEATH January 30, 1959
Place of death Hillside, Wisconsin