Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

BROWN, Ted

(b 1 December 1927, Rochester NY) Tenor sax. His father played banjo; he studied with him, then reeds with his uncle from age 14, later becoming like Warne Marsh and Lee Konitz a pupil of Lennie Tristano, and a unique stylist who was subsequently overlooked by the public and the music business. He co-led a two-tenor group with Marsh including album Jazz Of Two Cities on Imperial (tracks later on Capitol CD Intuition), made his own Free Wheeling on Vanguard with Marsh and Art Pepper, and played on All About Ronnie on Savoy, all with pianist Ronnie Ball (b 22 December 1927, Birmingham, England; emigrated to USA '52, d '84), all '56. He played on Konitz's Meets Jimmy Giuffre '59 and Figure And Spirit '76; Live In Hollywood with Warne Marsh, recorded at Whistling's Hawaii on Sunset Strip '57, came out many years later on Marshmallow. was rescued for record-buying music lovers by Criss Cross producer Gerry Teekens for Ted Brown In Good Company '85, with guitarist Jimmy Raney, pianist Hod O'Brien, Buster Williams on bass and Ben Riley on drums. Then the trio Free Spirit '87, with just O'Brien and bassist Jacques Scholes, was one of the most beautiful and mellow albums of that or any other decade.

He played on Konitz's Sound Of Surprise '99 on BMG. A co-led album with Konitz the same year was Dig It, followed by a Brown quartet album Preservation 2002 and a trio set Shades of Brown 2007, all on Steeplechase. Live At Pit Inn, Tokyo with the Yoichi Hirai Group 2009 was on Marshmallow, as was Live In Yokohama recorded the same week with pianist Gene DiNovi. The co-led Pound Cake 2011 with cornettist Kirk Knuffke was back on Steeplechase, and included five of Brown's tunes, and Two Of A Kind 2012 with Brad Linde on tenor sax was on Bleebop.  

Like Brown, Chicago-born Walter Howard 'Hod' O'Brien (b January 19, 1936; d November 20, 2016) never became a household name, but made a lot of people happy. He made at least nine albums as a leader on labels such as Fresh Sound, Criss Cross and Reservoir. His book about the jazz life is called Have Piano...Will Swing.