Ted Brown Quartet at Trumpets Jazz, Montclair, NJ, August 27, 2006

On July 21, 2006, eJazzNews ran a reader-submitted listing for the Ted Brown Quartet at Trumpets Jazz Club in Montclair, New Jersey, on August 27, 2006, together with a short biography of the tenor saxophonist. That night’s set was recorded by the band’s bassist, Don Messina, and later issued on the album Live at Trumpets. Brown, born in 1927 and one of the last surviving students of Lennie Tristano, turned 98 in December 2025; Trumpets closed in 2019.

What the 2006 listing said

The notice announced a Sunday show at 7:30 pm at Trumpets, 6 Depot Square in Montclair, with a $15 music charge. The quartet was Brown on tenor saxophone, Jon Easton on piano, Messina on bass and Bill Chattin on drums, and the program was to be standards by Gershwin, Porter and Kern alongside tunes by Charlie Parker, Warne Marsh, Lee Konitz and Tristano.

The biography said Brown’s career began in a 1946 Army band, where he met Marsh and trumpeter Don Ferrara, which led to his years of study with Tristano. It named his 1956 debut as a leader, Free Wheeling, with Marsh and Art Pepper, his part in the 1959 Verve date Lee Konitz Meets Jimmy Giuffre, two albums for Criss Cross in the 1980s, and two SteepleChase CDs, Dig-It (1999) and Preservation (2002). It added that the rhythm section had played together since the mid-1980s and that Easton and Chattin had studied with Tristano in the 1970s.

A Tristano student with a day job

A detailed account of Brown’s life is Marian Jago’s 2015 study in the Journal of Jazz Studies, based on interviews with him. Brown was born in Rochester, New York, on December 1, 1927. Drafted at 18, he was stationed at Camp Lee, Virginia, in an Army post band by February 1946, and there met Ferrara, clarinetist Bob Stacy and Marsh. After moving to New York he studied with Tristano and played for three years in the advanced Saturday sessions at Tristano’s studio alongside Marsh. Lines he wrote as exercises, among them “Smog Eyes,” “Featherbed” and “Dig-It,” became part of the Tristano school’s repertoire.

From September 1956 Brown worked in Los Angeles with Marsh, pianist Ronnie Ball, bassist Ben Tucker and drummer Jeff Morton, recording Jazz of Two Cities for Imperial and Free Wheeling for Vanguard. Discogs lists the Vanguard LP as the Ted Brown Sextet, with Art Pepper on alto. After the group broke up in April 1957 he returned to New York and supported his family with day jobs, in time as a computer programmer, a career he kept until he retired in 1991; Jago notes that the eight months in Los Angeles were the only time before then that he could concentrate on music alone. He appears with Marsh and Bill Evans on Lee Konitz Meets Jimmy Giuffre, recorded Figure and Spirit with Konitz in 1976, and made In Good Company and Free Spirit for Criss Cross. For the style he came from, see our guide to cool jazz. Bassist Sonny Dallas came out of the same Tristano circle.

What happened next

Messina’s recording of the gig became the first five tracks of Live at Trumpets on Cadence Jazz Records (CJR 1260), including “Somebody Loves Me,” “Relaxin’ at Camarillo” and “Broadway”; the other four tracks come from the same quartet at Trumpets on August 7, 2010. Discogs dates the CD to 2016, while AllMusic gives a release date of June 16, 2017.

Trumpets, which opened in 1985, held its closing concert on September 28, 2019. In November 2025 New Artists Records released Just You, Just Me, seven standards recorded in 2013 by the same quartet at venues in New York and New Jersey. Reviewing it in February 2026, Jazz Journal described Brown as probably the oldest surviving Tristano student. Marsh died in 1987 and Konitz in 2020.

Where to start listening

• Free Wheeling (Vanguard, recorded 1956): Brown’s first album as leader, with Marsh and Art Pepper.
• Live at Trumpets (Cadence Jazz, 2017): includes the August 27, 2006 set from this listing.
• Just You, Just Me (New Artists, 2025): the same quartet in 2013, with Brown at 86.

Sources

• Marian Jago, “Dig-It: The Musical Life of Ted Brown,” Journal of Jazz Studies, April 2, 2015.
• Wikipedia, “Ted Brown (saxophonist),” accessed October 2026.
• Discogs, “The Ted Brown Sextet Featuring Warne Marsh and Art Pepper: Free Wheeling.”
• Wikipedia, “Lee Konitz Meets Jimmy Giuffre,” accessed October 2026.
• Discogs, “Ted Brown Quartet: Live at Trumpets.”
• AllMusic, “Live at Trumpets: Release Info.”
• Jay Lustig, “Montclair jazz club Trumpets will close at end of September,” NJArts.net, September 5, 2019.
• Papatamus Redux, “Ted Brown: Just You, Just Me,” December 24, 2025.
• Jazz Journal, “Reviewed: Ted Brown Quartet, Yusuf Mumin, Erb, Mayas, Hemingway,” February 8, 2026.
• The Guardian, “Lee Konitz, jazz saxophonist with 75-year career, dies of coronavirus aged 92,” The Guardian, April 16, 2020.
• Wikipedia, “Warne Marsh,” accessed October 2026.

This page is based on an article from the original eJazzNews archive (2001 to 2018), with background and sources added in 2026. The original text is not republished here. You can read the original as it appeared on eJazzNews via the Internet Archive.
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