Marion Brown

have you heard Marion Brown?

Why Not?

Over the past few months, I've been engrossed in digging the sounds of the fife and drum blues groups from the South, places like Panola County, folks like Napolian Strickland, Ed Young, Sid Hemphill, and Otha Turner, even Otha's granddaughter Sharde Thomas and the Rising Star Fife & Drum Band. It's incredible music. In the course of studying it, I came across some examples that hail from the Georgia Sea Island culture. Digging a little deeper, I started finding out that several of my favorite jazz artists come from that region (James Blood Ulmer & ....Marion Brown). Turns out that Marion Brown taught at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine which is about thirty miles from where I live. That was a long time ago, like early '70s. Brown went on to make plenty of incredible music, some employing ideas and sounds from his native Georgia, "Afternoon of a Georgia Faun," "Geechee Recollections," and an album with pianist Stanley Cowell called "Regeneration." On that record, Brown contributes a piece entitled "Shimmy Shewobble," which is a kind of catch-all title for some of the fife and drum blues jams. Incredible.

I got in touch with musicologist David Evans, one of the people who has done the most documenting and research about the fife and drum blues tradition, and he indicated that it was noted music writer/clarinetist Robert Palmer (whose film "Deep Blues" is a must-see for anyone interested in the blues) who hipped Marion Brown to the fife and drum music. Brown's interest in the style was so great that he took it upon himself to learn to make the fifes and even wrote a piece dedicated to Otha Turner (which I can't find anywhere but I'm looking...).

Brown's discography is chock full of really unique choices. He played on "Ascension" with Coltrane, with Archie Shepp on "Fire Music," with Harold Budd on "Pavillion of Dreams," did free improvisations with Wadada Leo Smith, recorded a version of "Visions" by Stevie Wonder, did unaccompanied solo saxophone improvisations, and simply never sounded anything less than utterly himself.

Ornette let him borrow his white plastic alto when he got to New York 'cause he was so broke he couldn't afford his own horn. When health problems prevented him from playing, he turned his artistic gifts to the visual mediums, painting and drawing and building instruments with the same deep imagination and craft he brought to music.

There are tributes to Marion Brown, His Name Is Alive, an "indie band," (whatever that means...) did a fantastic album entitled "Sweet Earth Flower," which hopefully, has the effect of drawing more listeners to his original music.

The following two pieces are meant as a token of my appreciation for his brilliant saxophone playing and his interest in the fife and drum music, respectively. He was always a student of the music who taught how to be an artist through his example. He is missed.

When Angels Sing (for Marion Brown)

Shortenin' Bread