Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
Keeping the Flame at Van Gelder Studio
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
William A. Brower Jr.
(Photo: Courtesy of the Brower family)William A. Brower Jr., a former DownBeat contributor and longtime fixture on the Washington, D.C., jazz scene as a writer, programmer, stage manager and festival producer, died of complications from a stroke on April 12 at Georgetown University Hospital in the District. He was 72.
Born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1948, Brower’s father was the first Black reporter at the white-owned Toledo Blade newspaper. A graduate of Antioch College, Brower moved to Washington, D.C., in 1971, where he worked as a community organizer and served as the jazz buyer for a local record store. Brower also managed a youth band that included trumpeter Wallace Roney, and went on to become an influential, behind-the-scenes figure in the city’s jazz community.
In addition to DownBeat, Brower contributed to a variety of publications, including JazzTimes, The Unicorn Times, Musician, American Visions, The Afro-American and The Washington Informer. He also worked on the PBS TV show Jumpstreet with Oscar Brown Jr. Brower wrote liner notes for notable jazz albums like saxophonist Arthur Blythe’s Black Arthur Blythe: Bush Baby, The Harper Brothers’ You Can Hide Inside The Music and saxophonist Willis Jackson’s Bar Wars. Brower conducted jazz oral histories for Howard University and The Smithsonian Institute.
Brower served as a stage manager for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Jazz at Lincoln Center and the Ingolstadter Jazztage in Germany. He was the co-founder and co-producer of the Capital City Jazz Festival in the mid-1980s.
Perhaps his most enduring legacy was his work for the late Rep. John Conyers (D–Mich.) as producer of the annual Jazz Panel and Concert presentations that took place during legislative conferences of the Congressional Black Caucus from 1985 to 2018. Under Brower’s leadership, these events featured some of brightest stars in jazz, including Dizzy Gillespie, Geri Allen, the Count Basie Orchestra and Randy Weston.
Brower was instrumental in helping Congressman Conyers draft and pass House Resolution 57, which declared that jazz was “a national treasure” in 1987. He also assisted Conyers in drafting and promoting House Resolution 4280: The National Jazz Preservation Education Act of 2014, which seeks “to preserve knowledge and promote education about jazz in the United States and abroad.”
Brower is survived by a daughter, Tina Louise Brower-Thomas, and a son, Karl Brower. DB
Don and Maureen Sickler serve as the keepers of engineer Rudy Van Gelder’s flame at Van Gelder Studio, perhaps the most famous recording studio in jazz history.
Sep 3, 2025 12:02 PM
On the last Sunday of 2024, in the control room of Van Gelder Studio, Don and Maureen Sickler, co-owners since Rudy Van…
Trio aRT with its avalanche of instrumentation: from left, Pheeroan akLaff, Scott Robinson and Julian Thayer.
Sep 3, 2025 12:03 PM
Trio aRT, a working unit since 1988, shockingly released its very first studio recording this summer. Recorded in…
“Think of all the creative people I’m going to meet and a whole other way of thinking about music and a challenge of singing completely different material than I would have sung otherwise to my highest level in dedication to the moment,” Elling says about his Broadway run.
Sep 9, 2025 1:18 PM
Kurt Elling was back at home in Chicago, grabbing some family time in a late-June window between gigs. Sporting a smile…
Pat Metheny will perform with his Side-Eye III ensemble at Big Ears 2026 in Knoxville, Tennessee, next March.
Sep 9, 2025 12:19 PM
Big Ears has announced the lineup for its 2026 festival, which will take place March 26–29 and include 250…
Mark Masters, right, with Billy Harper.
Sep 3, 2025 12:00 PM
The Rising Star Category of this publication’s annual Critics Poll was once called Talent Deserving Wider Recognition…