Tom P. Brown (June 3, 1888 – March 25, 1958), sometimes known by the
nickname
A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is ...
Red Brown, was an American
dixieland
Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band ...
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
trombonist
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...
. He also played
string bass
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar ...
professionally.
Early life
Brown was born in the
Uptown neighborhood of
. His younger brother,
Steve Brown, also became a prominent professional musician.
Career
Brown played trombone with the bands of
Papa Jack Laine
George Vital "Papa Jack" Laine (September 21, 1873 – June 1, 1966) was an American musician and a pioneering band leader in New Orleans in the years from the Spanish–American War to World War I. He was often credited for training many musici ...
and
Frank Christian; by 1910 usually worked leading bands under his own name. The band played in a style then locally known as "hot ragtime" or "ratty music". In early 1915, his band was heard by
Vaudeville
Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...
dancer
Joe Frisco
Joe Frisco (born Louis Wilson Joseph; November 4, 1889 – February 18, 1958) was an American vaudeville performer who first made his name on stage as a jazz dancer, but later incorporated his stuttering voice to his act and became a popular ...
who then arranged a job for Brown's band in
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, coordinates =
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, subdivision_name ...
.
On May 15, 1915, ''Tom Brown's Band from Dixieland'' opened up at Lamb's Cafe at Clark & Randolph Streets in Chicago, with
Ray Lopez, cornet and manager; Tom Brown, trombone and leader;
Gussie Mueller
Gustave "Gussie" Mueller (April 17, 1890 – December 16, 1965) was an early jazz clarinetist.
The New Orleans, Louisiana-born Mueller was a top clarinetist with Papa Jack Laine's bands in New Orleans before going to Chicago, Illinois with ...
clarinet,
Arnold Loyacano piano and string bass; and Billy Lambert on drums. In Chicago Gussie Mueller was hired by bandleader
Bert Kelly, and his place was taken by young New Orleans clarinetist
Larry Shields
Lawrence James Shields (September 13, 1893 - November 21, 1953) was an early American dixieland jazz clarinetist. He was a member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, the first jazz band to record commercially.
Background
Shields was born in ...
.
This band seems to be the first to be popularly referred to as playing "Jazz", or, as it was spelled early on, "
Jass
:Jass ''was also an early name for Jazz music. For other uses, see JASS.''
Jass ()David Parlett ''The Oxford guide to card games'', pg. 292-293, David Parlett (1990) is a family of trick taking, Ace-Ten card games and, in its key forms, a dis ...
". According to Brown, once his band started enjoying popularity the local Chicago musicians union began picketing his band of non-union out-of-towners. One picketer's placards intended to link Brown's band with the
Storyville prostitution district of New Orleans and the implied disreputable low life status; the signs read "Don't Patronize This Jass Music". The term "jass" at that time had a sexual connotation. The signs had the opposite of the intended effect; more people came to hear the band out of curiosity as to what "Jass Music" might be and how it could be performed in public. Brown realized the publicity potential and started calling his group "Brown's Jass Band". Some recently rediscovered Chicago newspaper advertisements list it as "Brown's Jab Band" or "Jad Band", confirming the reminiscences of Ray Lopez that the bandmembers assumed that "Jass" was too rude a word to be printed in the newspapers so they looked in a dictionary for printable words close to it, like "jade".
Years later, Brown would frequently brag that he led "the first white jazz band" to go up north. The Original Creole Orchestra preceded him.
Tom Brown's Band enjoyed over four months of success in Chicago before moving to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, where it played for four months more before returning to New Orleans in February 1916. Upon arriving home Brown immediately started rounding up another band to go back to Chicago with him. The group again included Larry Shields; at the end of October, Brown agreed to switch clarinetists with the
Original Dixieland Jass Band
The Original Dixieland Jass Band (ODJB) was a Dixieland jazz band that made the first jazz recordings in early 1917. Their " Livery Stable Blues" became the first jazz record ever issued. The group composed and recorded many jazz standards, the ...
bringing
Alcide Nunez
Alcide Patrick Nunez (March 17, 1884 – September 2, 1934), also known as Yellow Nunez and Al Nunez, was an American jazz clarinetist. He was one of the first musicians of New Orleans to make audio recordings.
Biography
Alcide Patrick Nunez wa ...
into his band. Brown, Nunez and New Orleans drummer Ragbaby Stevens then went to work for Bert Kelly, who brought them to New York where they temporarily replaced the Original Dixieland Jass Band at
Reisenweber's in 1918. Brown started doing freelance recording work with New York dance and novelty bands, then joined the band of
Harry Yerkes. At the start of 1920 he was joined in the Yerkes Band by Alcide Nunez.
Brown also played in vaudeville in the acts of Joe Frisco and
Ed Wynn
Isaiah Edwin Leopold (November 9, 1886 – June 19, 1966), better known as Ed Wynn, was an American actor and comedian. He was noted for his ''Perfect Fool'' comedy character, his pioneering radio show of the 1930s, and his later career as a d ...
.
In late-1921, he returned to Chicago and joined
Ray Miller's Black & White Melody Boys, with whom he made more recordings. During this period, he also co-lead a dance band with his brother Steve.
In the mid-1920s he returned home to New Orleans where he played with
Johnny Bayersdorffer and
Norman Brownlee
Norman Edward Brownlee (Feb 7, 1896 - April 9, 1967) was born in Algiers, Orleans Parish, Louisiana. He was a pioneer jazz musician and led (and played piano with) a very popular orchestra in New Orleans in the 1920s, Brownlee's Orchestra of New O ...
's bands, making a few excellent recordings.
During the
Great Depression, Borwn supplemented his income from music by repairing
radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmi ...
s. He opened up a music shop and a junk shop on Magazine Street. He played string bass in local
swing and dance bands. With the revival of interest in traditional jazz he played in various
Dixieland
Dixieland jazz, also referred to as traditional jazz, hot jazz, or simply Dixieland, is a style of jazz based on the music that developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century. The 1917 recordings by the Original Dixieland Jass Band ...
bands in the 1950s, notably that of
Johnny Wiggs
Johnny Wiggs (born John Wigginton Hyman, July 25, 1899 - October 10, 1977) was a jazz musician and band leader.
Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, Wiggs started his music career on the violin. He soon adopted the cornet and moved ...
. A local
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
station thought it would be a good idea to invite Brown and
Nick LaRocca
Dominic James "Nick" LaRocca (April 11, 1889 – February 22, 1961), was an American early jazz cornetist and trumpeter and the leader of the Original Dixieland Jass Band. He is the composer of one of the most recorded jazz classics of all-time ...
to talk about how jazz first spread north from New Orleans, but the show had scarcely started before the two old men got into an argument that turned into a fist-fight.
Personal life
Brown made his last recording just weeks before his death. He died in New Orleans.
References
External links
Tom Brown in His Own Words a short 1957 interview, mostly about his early recordings
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Tom
1888 births
1958 deaths
American jazz trombonists
Male trombonists
Dixieland jazz musicians
Jazz musicians from New Orleans
Vaudeville performers
20th-century trombonists
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians