Clifford Benjamin Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer. He died at the age of 25 in a car crash, leaving behind four years' worth of recordings. His compositions "Sandu", "Joy Spring", and "Daahoud" have become jazz standards. Brown won the DownBeat magazine Critics' Poll for New Star of the Year in 1954; he was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 1972.
Early career
Brown was born into a musical family in Wilmington, Delaware. His father organized his four sons, including Clifford, into a vocal quartet. Around age ten, Brown started playing trumpet at school after becoming fascinated with the shiny trumpet his father owned. At age thirteen, his father bought him a trumpet and provided him with private lessons. In high school, Brown received lessons from Robert Boysie Lowery and played in "a jazz group that Lowery organized", making trips to Philadelphia.
Brown briefly attended Delaware State University as a math major before he switched to Maryland State College. His trips to Philadelphia grew in frequency after he graduated from high school and entered Delaware State University. He played in the fourteen-piece, jazz-oriented Maryland State Band. In June 1950, he was injured in a car crash after a performance. While in the hospital, he was visited by Dizzy Gillespie, who encouraged him to pursue a career in music. For a time, injuries restricted him to playing the piano.
Brown was influenced and encouraged by Fats Navarro. His first recordings were with R&B bandleader Chris Powell. He worked with Art Blakey, Tadd Dameron, Lionel Hampton and J. J. Johnson, before forming a band with Max Roach.
One of the most notable developments during Brown's period in New York was the formation of Art Blakey's Quintet, which would become the Jazz Messengers. Blakey formed the band with Brown, Lou Donaldson, Horace Silver, and Curley Russell, and recorded the quintet's first album live at the Birdland jazz club. During one of the rehearsal sessions, fellow trumpeter Miles Davis listened and joked about Clifford Brown's technical ability to play the trumpet. The live recording session ultimately spanned two days with multiple takes needed on only a couple of the tunes.
A week at Club Harlem in May 1952 featured alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and Brown. Brown later noted that Parker was impressed by his playing, saying privately to the young trumpeter "I don't believe it."
Just before the formation of the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet, journalist Nat Hentoff and Brown interviewed for a DownBeat article titled "Clifford Brown – the New Dizzy".
Later career
Roach's stature had grown as he recorded with a host of other emerging artists (including Bud Powell, Sonny Stitt, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk) and co-founded Debut, one of the first artist-owned labels, with Charles Mingus. Having participated in the legendary Jazz at Massey Hall concert of 1953, the drummer had relocated to the Los Angeles area and had replaced Shelly Manne in the popular Lighthouse All Stars. Roach and Brown formed the joint Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet in the mid-1950s with tenor saxophonist Harold Land, pianist Richie Powell, and bassist George Morrow, with Rollins taking Land's place in 1955. Brown was in the L.A. area from March to August 1954, on the invitation of Roach, who arrived on the West Coast with other well-regarded jazz musicians including Miles Davis and Charles Mingus. Prior to their first concert, the 1954 Pasadena Auditorium Concert, Roach included Brown on the basis that the two would be co-leaders.
The band's creation began when the two bandleaders rented a studio in California. With Brown able to, in addition to the trumpet, play the piano and drums, Roach and Brown were able to experiment with these instruments extensively at the studio. They settled upon the standard bebop quintet of trumpet, saxophone, piano, bass, and drums, with saxophone, piano, and bass players needed. With first choice Sonny Stitt choosing his own direction for his music, the bandleaders settled upon former Count Basie bassist George Morrow, unconventional pianist Carl Perkins, and tenor saxophone player Teddy Edwards as the first group, although this line-up was short-lived. The group that had formed "sent shock waves throughout the jazz community" according to Sam Samuelson.