[Deathwatch] Ray Brown, Jazz Bassist, 75

Thu, 4 Jul 2002 16:58:54 -0700 (PDT)

Jazz bassist Ray Brown dies on tour at 75
July 3, 2002 Posted: 3:34 AM EDT (0734 GMT)

http://www.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Music/07/03/obit.brown.ap/index.html

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Ray Brown, a legendary jazz bassist who
played with giants Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and his one-time
wife Ella Fitzgerald in a career that spanned a half century, has died.
He was 75. 

Brown died in his sleep Tuesday in Indianapolis where he was concluding
the U.S. leg of a tour, said John Clayton, a friend and fellow bassist.

Brown, whose fluid sound defined the bebop era, started his career in
the 1940s and performed during jazz's Golden Age with Gillespie, Parker
and Bud Powell. 

He was a founder of bebop and appeared with Gillespie in the 1946 film
"Jivin' in Be-Bop." Brown later became musical director and husband of
singer Ella Fitzgerald, whom he later divorced. 

"Ray played with such strength and power and he had such great musical
knowledge, he knew every right note to play and he had the most
fantastic technique," said drummer Frank Capp, a close friend. 

Ray Matthews Brown was born in Pittsburgh in 1926 and moved to New York
in 1945 where he was immediately involved in the emerging bebop
revolution. While playing in Gillespie's Big Band in 1946 and 1947, he
became Fitzgerald's music director, as well as her husband in the late
1940's, and worked with her even after their divorce. 

Brown played with an early edition of what became the Modern Jazz
Quartet, recording with the Milt Jackson Quartet in 1951. He
subsequently was a founding member of the Oscar Peterson's Trio, which
ranked among jazz's most popular groups of the 50s and 60s. He also was
voted top bassist consistently in critics' polls during the decade. 

Brown proved the ideal partner for Peterson's swirling, intricate
solos. The Peterson-Brown-Herb Ellis lineup stayed intact until 1957
and Brown remained with Peterson until 1966. 

In 1960, Brown created a stir when he had a hybrid instrument built for
him that combined features of the cello and bass. The experiment
attracted plenty of interest and eventually Ron Carter had a piccolo
designed along similar lines. 

After leaving the Oscar Peterson Trio in the mid-1960s, Brown moved to
California. He co-founded the group L.A. Four and appeared on the "Merv
Griffin Show." 

Among his recordings is the solo effort "Something for Lester." 

"He is the primary contributor to bebop from a bassist's standpoint,"
Clayton said. "We had Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Thelonious
Monk and there to contribute from the bass chair is Ray Brown. He was
extremely important in jazz education, leading a lot of young bass
players to learn the instrument." 

Brown lived in the Sherman Oaks area of Los Angeles with his wife,
Cecilia. 

Brown was finishing an engagement at the Jazz Kitchen in Indianapolis
at the time of his death. 

Brown had played golf earlier Tuesday and went to take an afternoon
nap, Clayton said. When he did not show up to perform, a bandmate went
to his hotel where his body was found in his room. 

Along with his wife, he is survived by a son, Ray Brown Jr., of Hawaii.