Lawrence Brown (August 3, 1907 – September 5, 1988) was a jazz trombonist from California best remembered for his work with the Duke Ellington orchestra. He was a session musician throughout his career, and also recorded albums under his own name. Most critics consider him to be one of the finest swing trombonists and greatly underrated.
Lawrence Brown was born on August 3, 1907, in Lawrence, Kansas. When Brown was about six or seven years old in 1914 his family moved to Oakland, California. He began playing the piano, violin and saxophone at a young age, but later turned to playing the tuba in his school's band.
Brown came from a musical background. His father was a preacher at the African Methodist Episcopal Church, where he often sang as a part of his sermons. Brown’s mother played the organ and the piano. Brown discovered the trombone while doing janitorial work at his father’s church. He stated that he wanted to replicate the sound of cello on a trombone.
Brown was such a good player that, within two weeks of leaving home, he had a regular job playing at a dance hall in Los Angeles. He joined Paul Howard’s Quality Serenaders in 1929 and Les Hite’s Orchestra in 1930. Soon he moved to the band at Sebastian's Cotton Club, where Lionel Hampton was the drummer and Louis Armstrong the featured attraction. Armstrong's playing had a profound effect on the trombonist. "He was the only musician who ever influenced me. I think the two greatest influences in the music of this century were Armstrong for his melodic style and," he added controversially, "Paul Whiteman for making a complete change in band style away from the symphony and dance band."
After an argument with Armstrong’s manager he left and in 1932, joined Duke Ellington's band. His great technical command of the instrument, with its "creamy tone, neurotic vibrato and range" was featured with Ellington's band every year in compositions such as "Blue Cellophane" and "Golden Cress." Brown was well-featured on many recordings with Ellington through the years; "The Sheik of Araby" (1932) and "Rose of the Rio Grande" (1938) were favourites. He changed not only Ellington's music, but the whole approach to jazz trombone playing. Brown brought to the instrument another kind of eloquence, based on a sweetness and purity of tone which he introduced to jazz. Later, too, he became one of the best blues players on his instrument.
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| Brown first left. |
He left Ellington's band in 1951 to join a band led by former Ellington sideman Johnny Hodges, where he stayed until 1955. After leaving Hodges, Brown took a position for five years with CBS as a session player. In 1960, he rejoined Ellington and stayed with him until 1970. Although he only led two albums of his own (a 1955-1956 outing for Clef and 1965's Inspired Abandon for Impulse). After leaving Ellington's band the second time at the age of 63, Brown stopped performing.
He fulfilled many roles in the Ellington Orchestra—as a balladeer, technical soloist, and section leader. He remained a temperate man, uninvolved and unaffected for 30 years by the boozing and gambling which was the Ellington band's modus vivendi. His nickname in the Ellington band was "Deacon". His highly melodic ballad playing as well as his fast technical style inspired trombonists from Tommy Dorsey to Bill Harris.
Brown's marriages to Fredi Washington, the actress, and Dorothea Bundrant ended in divorce. During the Seventies, he worked in a business consultancy and took part in Richard Nixon's presidential campaign. Before his final retirement, he took up a post with the Hollywood branch of the American musicians' union. Several attempts were made to persuade him to take up the trombone again after he left Ellington.
"When I finally left Duke," he said, "I called in to see my Auntie in Cleveland on my way back home to California. I left my trombone behind her rocking chair. As far as I know, it's still there. It can stay there."
He died September 5, 1988.in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 81 after recently suffering a stroke.
(Edited from Wikipedia, Steve Voce article & AllMusic)