DownBeat Magazine -"BROWN RISES AS NEW ORLEANS STAR" May 2005

When he was living in Chicago, Maurice Brown would take his trumpet to the New Apartment Lounge on the South Side almost every Tuesday night to sit in with Von Freeman at the saxophonist’s jam sessions.

Now that Brown, 24, is living in New Orleans, his Tuesdays are spent at Snug Harbor, the top straightahead jazz club in the city. And he’s not sitting in on anyone else’s session. Rather, he leads his quintet, and word has spread throughout the city that this is one of the top jazz shows to catch.

“It’s packed in there every week,” says Brown, who leads a  quintet with saxophonist Derek Douget, pianist Doug Bickel or Anthony Wonsey, bassist Jason Stewart, and drummer Adonis Rose or Troy Davis. “And we’re getting a younger generation to come out. There’s a great vibe there.”

Brown is one of the most exciting young trumpeters in jazz--be it New Orleans or New York.  His improvisations are fresh, his chops dynamic and he’s writing what could very well become a new generation of hard-bop-meets-new-grooves standards. And given that he’s only played the horn for about 10 years, his potential to grow in the music is staggering.

Brown first picked up the trumpet in high school in south suburban Chicago. Two years later, when he was 16, Brown played at a seminar led by Wynton Marsalis and made Marsalis’ ears perk up. He started playing regularly around Chicago, picking up influences ranging from Freddie Hubbard and Benny Bailey to Lester Bowie and Don Cherry. Shortly after he started studying music at Northern Illinois University, he got a call from Clark Terry--on recommendation from Marsalis--to perform with him aboard the QE2. While around Terry, Brown picked up plenty of musical wisdom.

“He told me to always stay true to the melody. No matter how crazy the music may be, stay true to the melody,” Brown says, and then adds, laughing “he also told me, ‘Be careful not to get too hip. You know what you get when you get too hip.’”

The dreadlocked trumpeter sure isn’t lacking in the hipness quotient. After all,  how many jazz artists sell women’s panties with the title of their album (Hip to Bop), on their website? But that’s not to say that the album is all about gimmicks. Brown’s self-produced debut, out on his own Brown Records, is filled with original compositions that give his simpatico bandmates a platform for impressive improvisation. “We worked this band before we went into the studio, “ Brown says. “It’s the opposite of how a lot of bands work today.”

Studying with Alvin Batiste at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., gave him a lot of the foundation that makes this album swing. It also put him down South, and the growing scene in New orleans lured him. The band on Hip to Bop is the same group with which he plays weekly at Snug Harbor, a gig he got when he filled in for drummer Jason Marsalis’ group one week. That week led to a month, and now he’s become a fixture.

In addition to his quintet, he leads the funk/acid jazz band Soul’d U Out, which has been increasingly active in New Orleans. “That’s my baby,” Brown says, “it’s r&b, hip-hop, jazz and fusion. I’m constantly writing for this, and working on an album. It’s all original music, and I’m writing all the words, all the hooks.”

Talking from New Orleans toward the end of February, as the mercury was in a free-fall in Chicago, does he miss Chicago at all? He starts laughing. Sure he misses playing with the likes of Freeman, Fred Anderson, and Ernest Dawkins, but, “The weather!” he says. “The weather, food, and people here are real nice. Plus, this city supports what you do. You’d be surprised at how many great artists are here in New Orleans.” 
--Jason Koransky, editor, Downbeat Magazine