Biography
The guitarist signals his debt to multiple jazz forebears through the shrewdly titled composition “Ahmadification,” most conspicuously the delicate imagination of pianist Ahmad Jamal. Because he spent many years on the faculty of the jazz studies department at Ithaca College in New York, players drawn to his style can study directly with him rather than merely listen and copy. Pupils receive not only his own insights but also the accumulated wit and counsel of the musicians with whom he has worked on the road and in studios, including bassist Chuck Israels, drummers Billy Hart and Ben Riley, saxophonist Gerry Niewood, pianists Marian McPartland and Barry Harris, and organ master Jimmy Smith. Brown has traveled widely throughout the United States and Europe, regularly offering educational clinics on jazz performance topics. His most extensive recorded exposure occurred in the early 1970s with trumpeter and bandleader Chuck Mangione, yet he has also issued a series of leader dates, among them the self-produced Night Waves. He further served as soloist on the atmospheric extended piece “Impressions of Point Lobos,” written and recorded by his brother, trumpet player, arranger, and composer Ray Brown, at the head of the Ray Brown Great Big Band. The two jazz musicians named Brown who co-authored An Introduction to Jazz Improvisation are unrelated. The guitarist likewise has no connection to 1920s jazz bassist Steve Brown beyond the one invented by discographers who profess to have located the fountain of youth.
Albums
