Remembering Ray Brown

(Compiled from a June 2002 phone interview)

In many jazz circles vocalists are held in something less than high esteem. Perhaps this is because the ratio of less-than adequate singers to exceptional ones tilts in the wrong direction.

While not confirming or denying the prevalence of this attitude, bassist Ray Brown does offer some words of advice to his fellow members of the rhythm section. Says Brown, “I think they should get a chance to work with a singer because you learn a lot about how to accompany, how to get out of the way and just support somebody. And, it takes a little bit of doing to do that.”

Many jazz musicians will tell you that as an instrumentalist knowing the lyrics to the composition at hand aids in performing and improvising on the tune. As the bassist in the legendary original trio of pianist Oscar Peterson, Brown was the recipient of some solid advice from an equally legendary saxophonist. “Ben Webster used to tell Oscar Peterson that ‘you guys ought to learn the lyrics of what you’re playing, especially them ballads because you’ll play ‘em better’.”

Brown has a penchant for recasting familiar music in a new form. He will frequently reduce the tempo of a tune until the recast song emerges as a slow contemplative ballad. According to the bassist this musical reconstruction is for the players as much as it is for the audience. “You can’t keep playing the same song in the same way for a hundred years. There’s a lot of songs that I’ve played all kinds of ways and that’s what keeps the music interesting because it becomes something different when you change the tempo like that.“

While the practice at first blush may seem out-of-place for jazz, Brown writes arrangements of the music his trio will play. As he put it, “This is not a jam session. I arrange so that everybody has plenty of room to play and express themselves but I like to concertize on the stage so that it’s not raggedy out there.”

When it comes to just stepping on stage and playing anything and everything that comes to mind, Brown has been there and done that. “Well I’ve done that, I did that for years and years and you get tired of doing that and you want something organized.”

As for preparation Brown sees both side of the issue, “There is so many sides to that. I’ve played in clubs and the reviewers come in and they say ‘Brown’s band is good but it is too organized. I don’t think you can be too organized.”

He continues, “I also think that three guys who play together long enough can go up and jam and you don’t even know their jamming because they can smell which way the other guy is going to go. But I don’t think that helps the performer or the audience.”

“You can’t be too organized if you are going to present music. The idea is to be organized and make sound like a jam session, if that is what you want. This is where I think some of the guys get off the track.”

Brown holds a positive and comforting view of what should be on the horizon for jazz He says, “The music is going to be here. It is not going to go anywhere. Jazz music has been around for a long time and it is going to be around for a long time. There’s going to be all different kinds of jazz.”

However, Brown places one limitation on any new type of jazz he says, “It has to swing. That is the only thing that makes this music what it is. (Otherwise) if you play a classical record and a jazz record, how do you know it’s jazz?”