3 Review(s)

Although he died in a tragic car accident at 25, Clifford Brown is widely considered one of the most important figures in the history of jazz, a trumpet player who ranks with Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, and a leading influence on contemporary jazz musicians. In this volume, Nick Catalano offers a major biography of the musician based on extensive interviews with Clifford Brown's family, friends and fellow jazz musicians. Catalano depicts Brown's early life, showing how he developed his technique; his meteoric rise in Philadelphia, where he played with many of the leading jazz players of the 1950s, including Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker; his tour of Europe with Lionel Hampton, which made him famous; and his formation of the Brown-Roach Quintet with prominent drummer Max Roach.