Donald Ray Brown
Donald Ray Brown (born March 28, 1954 in Hernando , DeSoto County , Mississippi ) is an American jazz pianist , composer and university professor.
Life
It was only on the advice of James Williams that the brother of five piano-playing sisters turned to the piano, having previously played the baritone horn, trumpet and drums. He attended Memphis State University from 1972 to 1975 on a music scholarship, played rhythm 'n' blues in Memphis and in 1981 replaced James Williams as pianist for Art Blakeys Jazz Messengers for one year . Because of an arthritis he took up teaching at Berklee College of Music in 1983 with Jerry Coker ; he has been with the University of Tennessee since 1988 , currently as an Associate Professor. Occasionally he recorded with musicians like Freddie Hubbard or Eddie Lockjaw Davis and made his own albums, such as Blues Man from Memphis with the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra and Bill Scarlett (2007).
He is a member of the Contemporary Piano Ensemble . At Blakey he composed and arranged pieces. His pieces have been recorded by Williams, Art Farmer , Donald Byrd , Jon Faddis , Wynton Marsalis , Kenny Garrett and Wallace Roney .
His music
Mulgrew Miller , for example, influenced his way of arranging small and large jazz ensembles . He has a hymnically recorded Killing me softly with his song by Aretha Franklin as a piano solo. He is sonically in the neighborhood of Phineas Newborn and Harold Mabern . In the title Cartunes of his eponymous CD, the entire wind arrangement sounds like a piano. His way of arranging for groups is unobtrusively haunting, reminiscent of fusion music and at the same time is multi-layered.
His arrangements or compositions are rhythmically driving, fall spontaneously into a swing and change in style, for example I Didn't Know What Time It Was on "The Sweetest Sounds".
Selection discography
- Cause and Effect , 1991, Muse, With Steve Nelson , James Spaulding, and Joe Henderson
- Cartunes , 1995, Muse MCD 5522. With arrangements for three wind instruments, vibraphone and percussion and humorous vocal interludes by Harold Mabern
- The Sweetest Sounds , 1989, Jazz City, 660 53 008, quartet with vibraphonist Steve Nelson
Lexigraphic entries
- Leonard Feather , Ira Gitler : The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz. Oxford University Press, New York 1999, ISBN 0-19-532000-X .
Web links
- Kurzbiographie at Answers.com (English)
- Donald Brown at Allmusic (English)
- Donald Ray Brown at Discogs (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Brown, Donald Ray |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American jazz pianist, composer and university professor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 28, 1954 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hernando , Mississippi |