My Clifford Brown presentation Monday

Clifford Brown was an iconic powerhouse trumpeter of what is now considered the hard bop style. He was greatly respected by his fellow musicians, critics, and listeners, for his fat sound, precision, and range. Also, he was perhaps one of the most honest clean living jazz musicians in an era (‘50s) that was stricken with heroin abusers. Clifford was a strong role model for other young jazz musicians as a player that did not need drugs to fuel his prowess on the band stand. He was a part of a jazz trumpet lineage that could for all intents and purposes be traced to Louis Armstrong (and perhaps even Louis’s influences; Buddy Bolden, King Oliver, Freddie Keppard), but for the purpose of my presentation I want to emphasize the lineage of Fats Navarro to Clifford Brown to Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard (who then subsequently influenced countless others).

Fats Navarro (b. 1923) was one of the true pioneers of bebop, directly involved with shaping the art form itself. He was on many of the most important recordings with Bud Powell, Tad Dameron, and Billy Eckstine, and performed with a who’s who of the era. Fats moved to NYC by the mid to late ‘40s and was one of the integral players in the originals Minton’s scene. Fats was on par with Dizzy Gillespie, having just as much range, technique, and stamina for incredible virtuosic trumpet playing. One of the things that has been mentioned about Fats was that he developed his solos systematically in that he would build up portions of melodic material to fit over the given chord sequence of a tune and would little by little edit out bits and parts that he did not like. There is clear evidence of this in his recordings of “out takes”, in which (for example) he plays portions of his solo over the A section or the bridge the same with a different second A or last A (etc.) While Clifford did not use this sort of mix and match approach he was famous for working out approaches to tunes in his practice session exhaustively.

When Clifford was around the age of 18, he did take some lessons with Fats. While I don’t have any information on how often they met or what they discussed it is clear to me by the way Clifford sounds that Fats had a profound effect on him. One thing that you can hear in Fats improvisation is that he does not shy away from turnarounds, he weaves his solos directly through these more difficult changes. This discipline was embraced by Clifford who was famous for his thorough practice of II V I sequences and therefore his seemingly infinite wellspring of melodic material. While many contemporary trumpeters of Fats might have played more of a gesture over the top of a series of changes, Fats would literally outline the harmonic sequence. In addition to this focus on the harmonic aspects of improvisation, the breadth of tone and vibrato in both Fats and Clifford's trumpeting is very similar. Clifford played with a strong upper register as did Fats (who was actually successful as a lead trumpeter in various big bands before becoming a well known small group artist). Also important is the emphasis on articulation in both Fats and Clifford’s solos, utilizing precise single or “doodle” tonguing techniques to heighten the rhythmic intensity of a phrase.

What I plan to do in class on Monday is play tracks of Fats, Clifford, Lee Morgan, and Freddie Hubbard and make an effort to point out the similarities in style.