May 25–June 1, 2000

critical mass

In Clifford’s Name

Jazz trio: Ian Merrill Peakes as Clifford, John Lumia as Al and Buck Schirner as Ziggy in Philadelphia Theatre Company’s production of Side Man.

by Nate Chinen

"They said the night he died, he played as if he knew he was going to die. That he must’ve known, because anyone who was there, it was in the back of a music store in Philly, people who were there said it was … they never heard anything like it in their lives. People have talked about that solo like it’s one of the lost wonders of jazz."

—Gene on Clifford Brown, in Side Man

Tragedy has been a component of jazz lore since the very beginnings of the art. From the start, it was a music of conflicts and frictions, forged of disparate elements during an American fin-de-siècle. Its heroes and heroines have often been victims — of adverse circumstances, self-destructive appetites or both.

By chance (or curse), some of the most infamous tragedies in jazz have befallen trumpet players. Bix Beiderbecke, Fats Navarro, Lee Morgan, Chet Baker — all came to untimely, even violent ends.

But none of these doomed players has inspired the same degree of pathos as jazzman Clifford Brown. This month Brown’s lasting appeal will manifest itself times three: at the 12th annual Clifford Brown Jazz Festival in Wilmington, DE; in the Philadelphia Theatre Company’s production of the Tony-award-winning play Side Man; and in Nick Catalano’s new biography Clifford Brown: The Life and Art of the Legendary Jazz Trumpeter (Oxford University Press).

Brown died in June of 1956 on a rain-slicked Pennsylvania Turnpike, in a Buick that also carried the pianist Richie Powell (Powell’s wife Nancy was behind the wheel). He was 25 years old. In a tribute concert held in 1977, Max Roach (who co-led the Brown-Roach Quintet) remembered his stunned response: "I locked myself in the hotel room and finished two bottles of cognac." Sonny Rollins has recalled (in conversation with his biographer, Eric Nisenson): "All I could do was go back to my hotel room and practice all night long." Within months, tenor saxophonist Benny Golson had penned a ballad called "I Remember Clifford." ("I agonized over each note," he later recounted.)

Although his time in the spotlight was brief (his recording career spanned a mere four years), Clifford Brown is generally recognized as one of the most formidable jazz trumpeters of all time. He wedded the warm midrange tone of Navarro (his primary influence) with the upper-register brio of Dizzy Gillespie, and devised an improvisational style that was beholden to neither. His sharp, clear articulation — most evident at blistering tempos — set a new benchmark for trumpet players. His discography, although slim, brims over with brilliant improvisation.

It is that musical talent which has prompted the City of Wilmington’s Department of Cultural Affairs to organize an annual jazz festival in the late trumpeter’s honor for the past 12 years. That and the fact that Brown, who was born and raised in Wilmington’s east side, is the city’s most prominent jazz alumnus. The Clifford Brown Jazz Festival — which takes place every June — has evolved into the largest free festival of jazz on the East coast. This year’s festival features straight-ahead fare exclusively; headliners include McCoy Tyner, Nicholas Payton, Ingrid Jensen, and Joshua Redman.

In his biography of Brown, Nick Catalano makes a case for determination (rather than overwhelming natural talent) as the crucial ingredient in Brown’s character. He also confirms the notion of the trumpeter as "teetotaler"; Brown eschewed drugs and alcohol, and rarely ran around with women. A chess player and a mathematician, he had only one true obsession: music. For this moderation, Catalano’s sources are unequivocal in their praise. "As a man and a musician," opines Quincy Jones (Brown’s onetime section-mate in the Lionel Hampton Band), "[Brown] stood for a perfect example [of] the rewards of self-discipline."

This perceived faultlessness has contributed greatly to the aura of tragedy surrounding the trumpeter’s demise. The fact that Charlie Parker only lived to 34 years of age is a tragedy, to be sure; but it could also be construed, rather cynically, as a sort of miracle. Brown, on the other hand, was pure victim; for many followers of jazz, his demise has always seemed quintessentially unfair.

Superstition exists among jazz aficionados as well as sports fans, and it’s possible to read Clifford Brown with an eye trained for omens. Catalano mentions that, during a road trip to Maryland when Clifford was a child, the family car narrowly missed a collision, overturning three times. Miraculously, no one was seriously hurt. Some years later, when the trumpeter was 19, he was riding with friends in Maryland when a deer bounded onto the road. The car swerved and flipped, killing the driver and his girlfriend instantly. Clifford was critically injured, with a mutilated left leg and bone fractures throughout the right side of his body. His excruciating rehabilitation, and his decision to pick up the trumpet again, provide a study in tenacity. But similarities between these previous accidents and the one which finally claimed Brown’s life are unsettling; they seem to suggest that the trumpeter’s career may have flourished on borrowed time.

	The man with the horn: Clifford Brown

This dire notion lurks in the wings during any production of Warren Leight’s Side Man (which during its Broadway run in 1999 won the Tony award for best play). The primary sideman in this case is Gene, a skilled but struggling horn player who names his son after Clifford Brown. The entire play unfolds from son Clifford’s narrative perspective. Resignation is the play’s primary color, even as it masquerades as humor. Gene is emotionally vacant; like his fellow horn players, he’s resigned to the role of a sideman. Another character, Patsy, waits the same tables for decades without a second thought. Clifford is resigned to patching things up: "You’re the Red Cross," Gene says to him at one point. Meanwhile, Gene’s wife Terry, the only character concerned with seeking a better lot in life, literally goes insane.

Clifford Brown serves as an obvious foil in Side Man; his sobriety and his sheer incandescence contrast sharply with the lukewarm careers and substance dependencies of Gene’s cohorts. Their adulation of Brown accentuates their own shortcomings. More importantly, Brown embodies the triumph of a trope — that of the jazz trumpeter’s tragic fate. Never mind the exceptions (Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, among many others); Side Man’s fatalistic portrait echoes a longstanding public perception. Oblivion can be either a destination (as in Brown’s untimely end) or a state of being (as in Gene’s purgatorial existence). Leight’s players, like Clifford Brown and Charlie Parker and all the others, have only so long before their fuses burn out. Fortunately, there’s music to be made in the meantime.

Side Man opens Fri., May 26 and runs through June 25, at the Plays and Players Theater, 1714 Delancey St., 215-735-0631. The Clifford Brown Jazz Festival runs June 7-11 at Rodney Square, 11th and Market Sts., Wilmington, DE, 1-888-3-CULTURE.