Biography
The jazz realm's intense rivalries sometimes yield advantages from wholly unexpected quarters. A hidden tape of Buddy Rich lambasting musicians on his tour bus, for example, secured a recording contract for the player singled out for the severest verbal attacks. Still more singular is the trajectory of Boyce Brown, better known as Brother Matthew. Whereas many earlier jazz figures faced pressure to abandon either their religion or their art, Brown attained far wider recognition only after joining a monastery in the early 1950s.
He sustained an active jazz career while belonging to the Servite Order, which collected every royalty generated by the 1956 ABC-Paramount album Brother Matthew with Eddie Condon's Jazz Band. Condon, though hardly comparable to Christ in influence, remained a decisive figure from the Chicago jazz environment of the 1930s. During that period Brown was said to hover at the margins, already something of a mythic name reputed for crafting strange, forward-looking improvised solos on recordings that have never surfaced—one of them alongside pianist Wild Bill Davison. After taking monastic vows, Brother Matthew's chief accompanist became Father Hugh Calkins. The swinging monk died of a heart attack.
He sustained an active jazz career while belonging to the Servite Order, which collected every royalty generated by the 1956 ABC-Paramount album Brother Matthew with Eddie Condon's Jazz Band. Condon, though hardly comparable to Christ in influence, remained a decisive figure from the Chicago jazz environment of the 1930s. During that period Brown was said to hover at the margins, already something of a mythic name reputed for crafting strange, forward-looking improvised solos on recordings that have never surfaced—one of them alongside pianist Wild Bill Davison. After taking monastic vows, Brother Matthew's chief accompanist became Father Hugh Calkins. The swinging monk died of a heart attack.