The Great Clifford Brown—On Video

Via Rifftides, Doug Ramsey's excellent blog, here's some incredible recently unearthed footage of the legendary Clifford Brown appearing on the Soupy Sales (of "send little green pieces of paper" fame) television show. Clifford was one of the great bop trumpeters of all time during his short career, which ended tragically early when he was killed in a car accident at the age of 25.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo5giymiLj8]

Clifford's playing was one of my biggest early influences on the trumpet—my first jazz trumpet teacher, Tom Peron (a great improviser in his own right and long-time fixture in the Sacramento jazz community), introduced me to Clifford's music while I was in high school, and I spent many hours fumbling through transcriptions of his solos on tunes like "Stompin' at the Savoy" and "The Blues Walk." A few years later, another teacher, the great Charles Tolliver, wisely recommended ditching the 19th -Century Arban's etudes I'd been practicing and use Clifford solos to develop technique instead. (There's a place for Arban, of course, but I believe his point was that if you want to be a jazz player, you might as well practice jazz as much as possible.)

As I became interested in more modern players, I drifted away from Clifford for a few years, but recently began listening to him again—I particularly like his "West Coast" album, Jazz Immortal (which can be found in this boxed set), and the beautiful Clifford Brown with Strings.

Although I always felt that Clifford's delivery—that is, his vibrato, phrasing, etc.—was a little bit over-expressive for my tastes (just a matter of subjective personal preference, of course), his line construction, harmonic vocabulary, and overall phenomenal chops are unparalleled and should continue to inspire trumpeters (and improvisers on all instruments) for years to come.