Steve Brown retirement concert

Arts feature:
profiling jazz professor and musician Steve Brown
Ithaca Times
April 23, 2008
789 words

"A Teacher's Legacy"

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A Teacher's Legacy...Jazz musician steve brown to retire from Ithaca College after four decades of dedicated work
By: Mark Tedeschi
04/23/2008

Any of the musicians who have been featured in the Ithaca College School of Music's Enduring Masters concert series could fill an entire article with a list of just a fraction of their accomplishments. The latest musician, Steve Brown, 65, has coauthored a book, recorded well over a dozen albums, and played with countless bands all over the United States and Europe. But as a teacher at IC for 40 years, his favorite type of achievement to talk about isn't one of his own; it's the collective successes of all the students whom he's instructed and befriended over the years.

Brown doesn't look his age; he's grey-haired and bespectacled, but that's about the only indication that you'll get. His exuberance discussing music subtracts years, and he embraces his excitement anticipating the hordes of alumni (35, to be exact, and certainly plenty more coming to watch) who will arrive in Ithaca for an alumni big band concert under his direction in Ford Hall at the Whalen Center for Music this Saturday at 8:15pm. Brown is currently a professor of music and the director of the jazz studies program at IC - in fact, he started the program in the 1980s.

In 1964, Brown graduated from IC with a degree in percussion, and in '67, became the school's first-ever master's degree recipient in classical guitar. He was always a jazz enthusiast, despite the fact that the school initially disapproved. "There used to be stickers on the pianos that said, "No playing of jazz on these pianos,'" he remembers. "I think the Scotch tape on the pianos would damage them more than the playing of jazz, quite frankly."

The school has come a long way. "I very much enjoy teaching jazz history courses, because I like to get to non-music majors - kind of twist their brain a little bit and open up their receptivity to jazz," he says. "I have a chance to influence people who will maybe go and support the music."

Considering his family's history, it's no wonder that he ended up a musician and teacher in Ithaca. "My mom and dad met on the steps of the Ithaca College Music School in the 1930s," he says. "They met on the first day of school at the old music building, which was downtown." They too were both teachers at high schools in Long Island, where Brown was born (Freeport).

Brown has been playing drums and guitar since fourth grade. His brother Ray, also an IC alumnus and bass player/jazz teacher, wrote a specially commissioned work for the concert called "I.C. Light" to feature Brown on four different instruments. Brown cites Barney Kessel as an important guitar influence growing up, as well as Jim Hall and, of course, Miles Davis. "He was an important one because of his flexibility... one of those chameleon kinds of characters," he says. "Historical lineage is very important." Brown offers a maxim he often repeats to his students: "These things are not revolutionary, but evolutionary."

Davis also gave Brown another sort of inspiration in the form of a namesake for his son, who will be playing bass in the concert. When asked if he always knew he'd name a son Miles, he chuckles. "I talked it up with my wife, and she seemed to like the idea. He's going to be taking over the Cornell Jazz Ensemble next year because Paul Merrill [the current director, also playing Saturday's concert] is going to finish his doctorate," he says. "I love having [Miles] in my back pocket, as I say."

Brown's daughter, Randi, will be one of seven featured singers in the concert. Most of the show's program will consist of his brother's or his compositions and arrangements. A handful of the performers he mentions, including professional musicians and college professors, include Howie Smith, Walter White, Jim Hynes, Gordon Vernick, Joe Bouchard, Tom Baldwin, Tish Rabe, Viet Gragg, Tony DeSare, Kim Nazarian, Darmon Meader, Cookie Coogan, Marty Ashby, Paquito D'Rivera, Al Hamme, and Tom Kline, project coordinator for the Enduring Masters series (and according to Brown, "a fabulous dude").

Brown rattles off stories of the alumni's accomplishments with great pride, but adds, "I don't take any credit for any of their abilities. If I motivated them to do something, then I'll take credit for that. And sure, I've taught them a fact or two here and there. But you have to understand that they're really great people to begin with." There will be short biographies of each participant in the event program so the group can concentrate on playing rather than introducing.

Of the weekend, Brown says, "It's going to be more than fun. It's going to be fantabulous, and you can quote me on that one."

Friday night, April 25, at the Lost Dog Cafe, there will be an alumni-organized jazz quintet featuring Brown on guitar, and after the concert on Saturday, April 26, there will be a jam session at the Carriage House.