Ray Brown

Jazz musician

• Born: October 13, 1926
• Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Died: July 2, 2002
• Place of death: Indianapolis, Indiana

Most notable as the double bassist who helped create the rhythmic underpinnings of modern jazz, Brown was adept as an accompanist, soloist, and composer in a variety of groups, from trios with pianist Oscar Peterson to such big bands as Dizzy Gillespie’s.

Early Life

Raymond Matthews Brown was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to a father who had a general interest in jazz and a particular interest in the music of pianist Fats Waller. Despite struggling economically during the Depression, Brown’s father encouraged his eight-year-old son to take piano lessons in the hope that the boy would eventually play like legends such as Art Tatum. His father’s enthusiasm discouraged Brown, who had difficulty expressing himself through the piano. Brown also realized that he was unable to match the reading and playing skills of several of his high school classmates. He wanted to take up the trombone, but neither the school nor his parents could afford one; however, the school did have an upright bass and a vacancy in the orchestra. The fourteen-year-old enjoyed mastering his new instrument. He played not only in the school band but also with groups in and around Pittsburgh. He also started listening to the recordings of Duke Ellington, whose bassist, Jimmy Blanton, impressed Brown with his rhythmic drive and improvisatory skills.

After graduating from high school in 1944, Brown played locally and on tour with the Jimmy Hinsley Sextet and the Snookum Russell band. Later, Brown decided to try his luck in were chosen, which he saw as the jazz capital of the world. He moved in with an aunt and wasted no time in visiting the clubs on Fifty-second Street, where he renewed a friendship with pianist Hank Jones. Through Jones, he met bop trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, who immediately asked Brown to audition for his group, which included alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, pianist Bud Powell, and drummer Max Roach. Gillespie hired Brown, and two weeks later the group added vibraphonist Milt Jackson, who became Brown’s roommate for the next two years.

Life’s Work

Brown’s experiences with Gillespie, in both small groups and big bands, helped shape the young bassist’s life and career. In 1945, he participated in an engagement that introduced modern jazz to the West Coast, and on Gillespie’s return to New York, Brown became part of his mentor’s major-label recording debut as well as an integral member of the rhythm section of his big band. Brown was featured as a soloist on the song “One Bass Hit,” a “bass concerto,” and he enhanced his reputation as a composer through pieces such as “Ray’s Idea.” When Ella Fitzgerald sang with the Gillespie band, she and Brown began a romance. They married in Youngstown, Ohio, on December 10, 1947. The couple adopted a boy born to Fitzgerald’s half sister, whom they named Ray, Jr. Brown spent much of his time touring with his wife as bassist in her backup trio.

Fitzgerald had a close professional relationship with the jazz impresario Norman Granz, who eventually became her manager, and this association led to Brown’s participation in Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic (JATP) tours. Through JATP, Brown met the Canadian pianist Oscar Peterson, and, for his orchestra, Granz formed a distinguished rhythm section of Brown, Peterson, guitarist Herb Ellis, and drummer Roach. In 1951, Peterson and Brown formed a trio that, over time, included guitarists such as Ellis and Barney Kessel. Through concerts and recordings, the trio became extremely successful. Conflicting schedules led to the separation and eventual divorce of Brown and Fitzgerald, although they continued to work together occasionally.

For the remainder of the 1950’s and into the 1960’s, Brown increasingly garnered national and international recognition, winning Best Bassist awards in DownBeat, Metronome, and Esquire polls. He participated in the first American jazz festival in Newport, Rhode Island; he came out with his first album as leader, Bass Hit! (1956); he was a faculty member at the school of jazz set up by pianist John Lewis in Lenox, Massachusetts; and he participated in Peterson’s Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto. He became interested in the cello’s potential for jazz and recorded an album to illustrate it. He also helped design a hybrid instrument made for him that combined the features of the cello and double bass.

The mid-1960’s brought important changes in Brown’s career. He left the Peterson trio and stopped participating in JATP tours. Desiring a stable life, he rooted himself in the Los Angeles music scene and found ample work as a freelance musician for television and film orchestras and for recordings and engagements with various groups. He accompanied vocalists such as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Sarah Vaughan, and Nancy Wilson. He and Ellington created a tribute album for Blanton. With guitarist Laurindo Almeida, drummer Shelly Manne, and saxophonist Bud Shank, he formed the L.A. Four, which toured nationally and in foreign countries such as Japan, Australia, Mexico, and Canada.

For the last three decades of his life, Brown concentrated on business management, guiding the careers of clients such as arranger Quincy Jones and the Modern Jazz Quartet. He continued to tour and record with various musicians, including several engagements with Gillespie. In 1993, he participated in Gillespie’s funeral in New York City. He also continued his involvement in jazz education. He had published an instruction book for the bass, and he now felt it was his duty to pass on his knowledge by encouraging young jazz musicians such as the pianist and singer Diana Krall. He received numerous awards, including the National Endowment for the Arts’ Jazz Masters Award. Brown also was a talented cook and golfer, and after a round of golf in Indianapolis, he died in his sleep on July 2, 2002.

Significance

A modest man, Brown did not place himself in the same category as double-bass masters such as Blanton, Oscar Pettiford, and Charles Mingus—but others did, extolling Brown’s impeccable intonation, instrumental mastery, swinging style, and improvisatory imagination. He played confidently in both classical and modern jazz idioms, and he was not averse to employing amplification and hybrid forms of his instrument if these enabled him to bring out the emotional truths of the pieces he played. In recognition of his work in revolutionizing the bass’s role in modern jazz, Brown was inducted into DownBeat magazine’s Jazz Hall of Fame in 2003.

Bibliography

Balliett, Whitney. Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz, 1954-2000. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. Balliett, an important jazz critic, often reviewed Brown’s concerts and recordings; those reviews are a part of this massive collection. Index.

Gitler, Ira. “Oscar Pettiford and the Bassists.” In Jazz-Masters of the Forties. New York: Macmillan, 1966. Examines Brown’s early life and jazz career during the 1940’s and 1950’s. Bibliography and index.

Maggin, Donald L. The Life and Times of John Birks Gillespie. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Because of Gillespie’s importance to Brown not just in his early career but throughout his life, Maggin discusses the bassist’s contribution to his mentor’s work in small groups as well as big bands. Notes and index.