Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Southern California Fires Hit the Jazz Community
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
Brown had several r&b hits in the 1950s, including “Don’t Be Angry” and “The Right Time,” which he wrote and later became a crossover smash for Ray Charles. While Brown had been in and out of the public eye throughout much of his career, he was on an upswing just before his illness last year with a new disc, Long Time Coming (Blind Pig), and international touring.
As Brown began his career singing gospel, he was one of the early singers to bring that music’s vocal inflections and rhythms to the emerging r&b field. As he said in the December issue of DownBeat, “When we sang a cappella, nothing but foot stomping was your timing. You had to know exactly what you were doing, because there was nothing else to give you a cue. I do that to this day.”
But what made Brown a unique vocalist were the inflections he brought to a string of vowels on such songs as “Don’t Be Angry.”
“I used to sit up late at night when I was a teenager and listen to foreign music on the radio,” Brown said. “I heard them singing what sounded like ‘lilililili’ and used that to pep up my songs.”
While business troubles and personal demons had kept Brown away from music throughout much of the ’60s and ’70s, he began recording again in 1979. Last year, he said that as one of the few survivors of the seminal r&b era, he was committed to performing.
“There are just a few of us left, and that’s why it’s a blessing to go out there,” Brown said. “Before I go onstage I always say a prayer.”
Gerald and John Clayton at the family home in Altadena during a photo shoot for the June 2022 cover of DownBeat. The house was lost during the Los Angeles fires.
Jan 21, 2025 7:54 PM
Roy McCurdy and his wife had just finished eating dinner and were relaxing over coffee in their Altadena home, when he…
“She said, ‘A lot of people are going to try and stop you,’” Sheryl Bailey recalls of the advice she received from jazz guitarist Emily Remler (1957–’90). “‘They’re going to say you slept with somebody, you’re a dyke, you’re this and that and the other. Don’t listen to them, and just keep playing.’”
Feb 3, 2025 10:49 PM
In the April 1982 issue of People magazine, under the heading “Lookout: A Guide To The Up and Coming,” jazz…
The Old Country: More From The Deer Head Inn arrives 30 years after ECM issued the Keith Jarret Trio live album At The Deer Head Inn.
Jan 21, 2025 7:38 PM
Last November, Keith Jarrett, who has not played publicly since suffering two strokes in 2018, greenlighted ECM to drop…
As Ted Nash, left, departs the alto saxophone chair for LCJO, Alexa Tarantino steps in as the band’s first female full-time member.
Mar 4, 2025 1:29 PM
If only because openings for JLCO’s 15 permanent positions appear about as frequently as sub-freezing days on the…
“The first recording I owned with Brazilian music on it was Wayne Shorter’s Native Dancer,” says Renee Rosnes. “And then I just started to go down the rabbit hole.”
Jan 16, 2025 2:02 PM
In her four-decade career, Renee Rosnes has been recognized as a singular voice, both as a jazz composer and a…
