[Dixielandjazz] Steve Brown

[Donald Mopsick]

Katie wrote:

<<"Steve was even better known to more people at the time than Bix
was.  In a way, he was the star of the Goldkette band.  At that time,
all the bands were using tuba.  But when they heard Steve they all
switched to string bass. None of them could equal him, though, he had
a really distinctive style and an uncanny sense of rhythm." - Stanley
"Doc" Ryker, quoted by Richard Sudhalter in "Bix: the Definitive
Biography Of A Jazz Legend".>>

Katie, I read an article in Mississippi Rag over 10 years ago about
Brown that included an extended interview with him in later years. I
think I remember him saying that he eventually had to stop playing the
bass due to developing a nasty case of tendinitis in both elbows. From
listening to him on records you can hear that he evidently he pulled
the strings quite hard all the time. The Wikipedia article on Brown at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Brown_(bass_player) says he settled
and played in 1930 in Detroit after his stint with Whiteman and died
in 1965. Have you heard any recordings of him post-1930 or in later
years? I wonder for how long he was able to maintain that dominating,
driving sound and attack while enduring pain.

The other thing I remember about that interview is that he said he had
his bass "re-graduated." This means that a luthier removes the top of
the instrument and shaves wood from the inside, regraduating or
feathering the edges so that the whole top vibrates more freely, kind
of like a speaker cone. The resulting "thin-top" bass can be quite
loud (I own one myself). Also, back in the '20s the "mix" for
recording sessions was achieved through physical proximity to the mic,
and it sounds like they put Steve right up front since he was the
star.

One more thought about Brown worth mentioning: years ago, Dick Hadlock
put together a wonderful radio show about New Orleans bass players
born before 1900. The list included Bill Johnson, John Lindsay,
Wellman Braud, Al Morgan (predecessor of Milt Hinton in the Cab
Calloway band, you can see him slapping the bass in the soundie of
"Reefer Man" wih Cab), and of course Brown. Hadlock said that all of
them had a similar style and approach to the bass and time playing,
and that all of them, after emigrating away from New Orleans, found
themselves in bands with non-New Orleanians, where they served as the
"spark plugs" of the rhythm sections. So the insistent, driving, peppy
rhythm of early Chicago jazz bands can be said to have originated with
these NO men, kind of sprinkled around the emerging pool of players.

Since Bill Johnson was born some 23 years before Brown, and Milt
Hinton told me he thought of Johnson as the father of jazz bass, I
would go with that opinion. But getting all the tuba players to switch
to the big fiddle is an accomplishment worthy of beatification, in the
same class as Eddie Lang causing the switch from banjo to guitar.

mopo guapo