Rob Brown Albums (10)
'Crown Trunk Root Funk'
Release Date 3/11/2008
Tracks 7
Label AUM Fidelity
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Saxophonist Rob Brown demonstrates once again that he is one of the most engaging voices of his generation on the alto. On this compelling session, free-form group improvisations alternate with lively compositions, including contributions from trombonist Steve Swell and bassist Joe Morris. What makes this recording particularly successful is the fine interplay between Brown and Swell. The pieces often feature exciting but subtle dialogues and counterpoint. The pair's ideas are carefully developed and their attention to detail pays dividends as the two musicians stimulate and/or support one another. They get more than adequate help from a sympathetic rhythm section. Drummer Luther Gray's playing is ideally crisp and bassist Morris fulfills a more traditional role than the one he usually assumes as a guitarist exploring uncharted territories. As time passes, Brown seems to be getting relatively more mellow. As a consequence, his music is becoming more accessible but is gaining in effectiveness. Radiant Pools is another winner in Brown's challenging body of work. ~ Alain Drouot, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
A New York City denizen, alto saxophonist Rob Brown leads this mighty trio through a wily set awash with powerful modern jazz grooves, free-form discourses, and much more. Here, acclaimed modern jazz acolytes bassist William Parker and drummer Warren Smith perpetuate a loosely based, polyrhythmic attack beneath Brown's soaring skyward approach. The band sustains a flexible disposition via fragmented rhythmic exercises and Brown's homogenous blend of soul-stirring choruses and verbose dialogues. They temper the flow in spots, amid the saxophonist and Parker's contrasting tonalities and cunning harmonic escapades. However, the musicians operate from within a variety of disparate angles. At times, Brown surges forward with Albert Ayler-like intensity to complement his emotive musical spirit, as the rhythm section pushes, prods, and mixes it up on several occasions. Heated soloing abounds, as this fine effort signifies an adventurous endeavor through a sequence of skewed peaks and gaping valleys. Serious musicians are at work here. ~ Glenn Astarita, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Alto saxophonist and flutist Rob Brown is often featured in the context of other leaders' recordings as an inventive improviser who has enough of the early AACM in him to stretch time, space, and harmonic ideas, and enough of the late-'50s hard bop tradition in his playing to make whatever he involves himself in move. This being only his third date as a leader, it's difficult to see why. Brown is a fiery player and an inspiring bandleader. With a harsh yet rich tone that comes out of the Anthony Braxton school of alto blowing, he careens through rapid successions of crisscrossing melody lines in "Twinkle," the opener, trading fours and overtones with Roy Campbell's trumpet. With a rhythm section comprised of the young Chris Lightcap on bass and Jackson Krall on drums, this quartet has enough heat to share a bandstand with anybody. Over seven compositions, Brown reveals how brevity is the key to dragging ideas out of his players. He is always firmly in charge, but in a capacity that is nurturing musically. There are places, such as on "Like a Top" and "Step With Care," where his own development in the Ornette Coleman school of melodic free improvisation shines forth as it leads the quartet into places it could never have expected to go. In all, this is an awesome example of the new jazz coming from New York. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Two saxes, bass, and drums playing wildly free jazz might seem like a tough act, but not with the talent assembled here. Alto saxophonist Rob Brown has made a name for himself as a supremely gifted stylist, and if you listen close enough, you can hear the ghost of early Ornette. Add tenor saxophonist Assif Tsahar, who has absorbed the post-Coltrane dialect, and you have a genuine battle of the saxes. Co-leader and percussionist Lou Grassi continues to impress with his forays into the lower depths, aided by the solid chops of bassist Chris Lightcap. High points include the wonderful tunes and arrangements by Brown, as well as his highly inventive soloing. If the horns sometimes seem to fly in different directions, the lengthy improvisations should be a sax lover's delight. ~ Steve Loewy, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Recorded live in 1996, this reunion of Rob Brown and Matthew Shipp, who arrived in New York together in the mid-'80s, is a wealth of dialogue and a stellar example of musical camaraderie. Here is a three-part suite based on the immediacy of the sonic idea as it translates without gimmick or artifice from one mind to the next and back, shifted, stretched, or downright changed as an offering for further dissection and sonorous unction. There are interstitial elements of Brown's knife-edge tone that set particularly well with Shipp's crescendoing left hand, first hovering, then pounding the middle register as Brown reaches for a slot between high and middle. When Brown moves over to the flute, Shipp's left-handed arpeggios dance all around his timbral notions, creating an echo of vibratory nomenclature to enclose one frame of reference while articulating a further one and bringing in the idea of becoming still once more. Everything is full-speed ahead, though there are dynamic breaks and continuances and the unfolding of dramatic tonal architectures that are layered in such textured balance that they create a towering, yet gentle perceived aural structure. Deft, wooly, and elegant, this disc is hot. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
This trio session was altoist Rob Brown's first as a leader. All three musicians had served time in Cecil Taylor's bands and the listener indeed gets a strong sense of the Jimmy Lyons influence here, with perhaps some Oliver Lake thrown in for good measure. In fact, if you dropped Taylor from his early-'70s band (with Lyons, Sirone, and Andrew Cyrille) and updated it by a couple of decades, you might very well come up with something approximating this disc. Brown has a liquid and linear way of phrasing that allows him to glide through the relatively free structures he's created here (all the compositions are penned by him) and even when he drives scorching to the outer limits of his horn, there's an innate lyricism that's never far below the surface. When he takes off into the ether on tracks like "Just a Touch," the results mark a high-water mark in the ecstatic jazz scene of the early '90s. Older listeners might argue that, for all its technical proficiency, the music is essentially a regurgitation, with little real advancement, of music first heard in the late '60s and early '70s, and there's certainly something to be said for this point of view. For younger listeners, however, those weaned on the experimental rock scene, the musicians in this trio and others opened many a conceptual door. Parker is a solid enough mainstay here, though one might wish for a bassist with a less muddy tone, someone (like Sirone!) more capable of punching through the storms. Krall has a precise, coloristic attack that serves well as a foil for both of his comrades. Brown shows himself in full command of his horn and if, ultimately, High Wire is more a free blowing session than an exposition of ideas (the tunes are a bit sketchy and perfunctory), it's a solid, enjoyable one that fans of the downtown New York scene will want to own. ~ Brian Olewnick, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Accompanied by Wilber Morris on bass and Lou Grassi on drums, New York's Rob Brown leads his trio on perhaps the most "inside" date he's ever played. Comprised of seven tracks, all of them supposedly improvisations, Brown and co. take a deep walk through the lake of blues as it has evolved alongside and inside jazz and the free improvisation movement. With "A Step Out the Door," Brown moves from quoting John Hurt to Hoagy Carmichael almost in the same breath, easing his delivery on the alto saxophone making it warble, sing, and even swing as he touches bases on all the mentors in blues and jazz: we can hear Monk, Rollins, McLean, Gershwin, Son House, Champion Jack, etc. On "Pivot-Full Swing," the rhythm section gets an opportunity to collectively wrest the control of harmony and the space/time continuum from the soloist. Brown plays catch up as Morris, using a bow and playing pizzicato, shapes a harmonic architecture, which Morris accents with rolls across the tom toms and with shimmering cymbal work. Brown finds himself in the unlikely position of playing ostinato for much of the tune. On "Pussy Foot," Brown's alto flute resonates in a sweet blues, caroling through the center of a random rhythmic setup. All ballad, it lilts and carries forth in half lines and parsed phrases, allowing Morris to fill in the necessary transition lines toward the next idea. The entire album is a meditation on the instinct of blues and mood, and as such it presents Brown in an entirely different light as a soloist and as a leader. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Rob Brown is a fiery free jazz alto saxophonist whose playing is full of passion. This trio date with bassist William Parker and drummer Dennis Charles is a throwback in ways to the intense projects recorded by the ESP label in the 1960s, but it is also more modern, looking towards Cecil Taylor. Brown performs eight of his originals (ranging in time from 4:47 to 11:33) and, despite some mood variations, the music is mostly quite intense. A high-quality avant-garde blowing session. ~ Scott Yanow, All Music Guide
