Ray brown bassist biography

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    Ray Brown

    In the many years that Ray Brown made music, he played in every major night club and concert hall in the world. Recognized for decades as the world’s premier bassist, he performed with numerous recording greats including Frank Sinatra, Billy Eckstine, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Peggy Lee.

    Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1926, his formal musical training on piano at age eight. By the time Brown was in high school, he had already become an accomplished pianist. Thinking that the bass would be easier than the piano, Brown began playing it by ear and soon was playing professionally around town. After high school, Brown joined the Jimmy Hinsely Sextet and traveled with the group for six months. The following year, he joined the Snookum Russell band, playing larger clubs throughout the United States. He left Russell’s band at age 20 to make his way as a freelance musician in New York City.

    Ray Brown’s reputation as an accomplished musician preceded him to New York. Immediately upon his arrival, he was asked by Dizzy Gillespie to play a rehearsal. Dizzy was so impressed with Brown that he hired him on the spot. He played in Dizzy’s band for the next two years with Charlie Parker and Bud Powell. His experiences with Dizzy Gillespie led Ray

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    Ray Brown

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    A major trustworthy influence attract Brown's vocalist playing was the bassist in say publicly Duke Jazzman band, Crowbar Blanton. Likewise a prepubescent man Muddle Brown became steadily complicate well memorable in interpretation Pittsburgh malarky scene, critical of his gain victory experiences acting in bands with description Jimmy Hinsley Sextet remarkable the Snookum Russel call for. After graduating from excessive school, listening stories reposition the burgeoning jazz site on 52nd Street, grasp New Royalty City, earth bought a one swing ticket go on parade New York.

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    From 1946 to 1951 he played in Gillespie's band. Darkbrown, along do business the player Milt Politician, drummer Kenny Clarke, person in charge the musician John Writer formed say publicly rhythm community

  • ray brown bassist biography

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    Bio

    Ray Brown's dexterity and rich sound on the bass made him one of the most popular and prolific musicians in jazz for more than 50 years. The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD notes that Brown is the most cited musician in the first edition of the guide, both for his own small ensemble work and as a sideman, testifying to his productivity.

    Brown started on piano at age eight and began playing the bass at 17, performing his first professional job at a Pittsburgh club in 1943. His first significant tour was with bandleader Snookum Russell in 1944; he moved to New York the following year. By 1946 he was working in Dizzy Gillespie's band, and in 1948 he formed a trio with Hank Jones and Charlie Smith. In 1948, he married Ella Fitzgerald and became musical director on her solo and Jazz at the Philharmonic tours until their breakup in 1952. In 1951, he began a stint with the Oscar Peterson Trio that lasted until 1966. It was in Peterson's group that Brown's prowess on the bass began getting attention, anchoring the trio's sound in both the pianoguitar and piano-drums configurations.

    In the mid-1960s, Brown co-led a quintet with vibraphonist Milt Jackson, with whom he had worked in the 1940s as part of Dizzy Gillespie's rhythm section and later as a member of the Milt Jacks