Brian Brown (musician)

Brian Ernest Austin Brown ( born December 29, 1933, Melbourne, † 28 January 2013) was an Australian jazz musician ( tenor and soprano saxophone, flute, pan flute, synthesizer, percussion), composer and music educator.

Life and work

Brian Brown, who grew up as an orphan in the Melbourne suburb of Carlton, with 15 years left school and started his career as a professional musician in Melbourne as a tenor saxophonist in a dance band. In the next 25 years, Brown worked with his own bands at clubs like Jazz Centre 44 ( 1950 ), The Fat Black Pussy Cat ( 1960 ) and in the 1970s in the Prospect Hill Hotel and commune. In 1964, he earned a bachelor's degree in architecture at the University of Melbourne; after three years as a professional architect gave him a grant from the Australia Council to work as a full time musician. In 1977 he played with Dizzy Gillespie; In 1978, his Brian Brown Quartet on the first Australian band to Scandinavian Jazz Festival, where he stood alongside jazz stars such as Ornette Coleman, Max Roach and Freddie Hubbard on stage.

From 1978, Brown taught music at the Victorian College of the Arts in 1980 in the field of jazz studies when he created the VCA improvisation courses and directed until 1998. In 1993 he received the Medal of the Order of Australia for his services as a musician, composer and educator. He was married to the music teacher Ros McMillan, with whom he had three daughters. Brown, who died of a heart attack in early 2013, has participated in 34 recording sessions in the field of Jazz 1956-2006.

Disco Graphical Notes

• Upward (44 Records, 1977)
• Bells Make Me Sing ( 1979)
• Planets (1985 )
• Spirit of the Rainbow ( 1992)