kathy brown

published: Friday | January 26, 2007
Adrian Frater, News Editor
:
Although not attracting top billing, it was the charismatic and musically charged Dr. Kathy Brown who stole the spotlight on Wednesday night as the 2007 Air Jamaica Jazz & Blues Festival ended its two-night stopover in the scenic theatre at the Half Moon Shopping Centre, Montego Bay.
With brilliant support coming from famed drummer Desi Jones, top-flight bassist Ian Hoilett and master percussionist Denver Smith, who also played congo drums; Dr. Brown was almost therapeutic in her delivery as she drew prolonged applause from the small but appreciative audience.
- GLEANER WESTERN BUREAU, Jamaica

Thursday, June 28, 2007
Dr Kathy Brown on piano

Jazz pianist Dr Kathy Brown is so far proving a big hit on a world-leading Internet jazz website. The founder and leader of the Dr Kathy Brown & Friends band reached position Number 82 of the Top 200 most viewed musician profiles on AllAboutJazz.com, arguably the world's best media reference in jazz and improvised music.
Within a month of being posted on the site, the pianist tallied 470 hits to move up the Top 100 of thousands of registered musicians whose profile appear in the New York based jazz publication.
The All About Jazz (AAJ) tabloid and Internet magazine, which, at the time of writing, has on register 13,790 jazz musicians, records an average of one million Internet viewers per month from across the world since 2006, recording a phenomenal 47,151 hits on January 15 this year.
Of the Top 200 musician profiles viewed, Kathy Brown appears four positions behind her mentor Ahmad Jamal (78), six behind Ella Fitzgerald (76), two and four places before pianist Herbie Hancock (84) and trumpeter Chet Baker (86) respectively.
A sample of names appearing before Brown include singers Sarah Vaughn (72), Ray Charles (67), and Michael Buble (68) saxophonist Kenny Garrett (58), band leader Duke Ellington (50), John Coltrane (36), Louis Armstrong (27), Wynton Marsalis (21), Thelonious Monk (8), and master trumpeter Miles Davis (4).
Some well-known names in jazz and improvised music, a few superstars included, are yet to garner the kind of curiosity that Kathy Brown offers as a fresh artist on All About Jazz. She is currently ahead of Clifford Brown (97), Oscar Peterson (99), Sonny Rollins (102), pianist, and singer Diana Krall (103), Chuck Mangione (122), Joe Sample (131), Dexter Gordon (142), Quincy Jones (143), Billy Holiday (146), the instrumental band Spyro Gyra (148), Astrud Gilberto (154), Marcus Miller (162), and singer Dee Dee Bridgewater (188).
Guitarist Russell Malone, born in Georgia and now residing in New Jersey, and who is best known for his work with Diana Krall, is currently the most viewed artiste on the AAJ site. This surge in the interest comes ahead of Malone's July 17 release of Live At The Jazz Standard Volume Two CD, the continuation of Live At The Jazz Standard recorded at New York City club The Jazz Standard between September 9 and 11, 2005.
But, for a seemingly humbled Kathy Brown this interest shown in her by AAJ viewers is way ahead of her own expectations.
"I am thrilled," said an elated Brown. "It is nice to know that people are interested in me as a musician. I never expected to be viewed, thinking I would be insignificant among this great line-up of jazz artistes that are profiled on the jazz website. It might be that viewers are looking on me as a woman but I would like to think that people out there are interested in my talent," she told the Observer.
Continuing, "I am thrilled to know that I am being regarded among jazz greats like Ahmad Jamal, Diana Krall, Marcus Miller, and Quincy Jones. I hope one day I will be able to take my music around the world and maybe then I could be justifiably considered among those greats".
- The Jamaica Observer

Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer


Pianist Kathy Brown is all smiles as she greets Dr Leahcim Semaj at her album launch at the Villa Ronai, Old Stony Hill Road, St Andrew, on Wednesday night. - Colin Hamilton/Freelance Photographer

Kathy Brown marked an important stop in her lifetime musical journey at the Villa Ronai, Old Stony Hill Road, St Andrew, on Wednesday night with the official launch of her debut CD.

There was very strong support from those who have been with the pianist along the way to the nine-track instrumental CD, Mission: A Musical Journey.

With her mother in the gathering, after the final musical piece for the night, Grandfather, Brown said, "It began with my parents. There was a piano in the house and I got the opportunity to go to the piano when I wanted."

Then, when she came to the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona campus, from her Mandeville hometown to study medicine, she heard Dr Conroy Cooper play and he later invited her to participate in jazz sessions at New Kingston hotels.

He also advised her to form her own band and Brown smiled as she indicated the result, Akil on drums, Sherwaye on bass and Denver on percussions.

Rapt audience

Earlier, Desi Jones had been on drums for Flintstones, which Brown described as "my semi-Jamaican, semi-jazz take on this tune", the beat switching from outright dancehall to reggae during the song. Jones also played on Latin Groove, the audience rapt at the interchanges between himself and Denver.

Brown also thanked Dr Lee Martin from the other side of her life as a medical doctor, for standing in for her when she needed to make musical calls.

The substantial audience included ambassadors from Britain, China, St Kitts and Nevis and the United States, Brown expressing regret that the Cuban ambassador was unavoidably absent.

They got several doses of musical vitamins from Kathy Brown, whose passion was evident in her playing. The opening Rasta Journey was a take on Rivers of Babylon, Brown's left hand lifting slowly at points.

Congratulatory comments

There was nothing slow, though, about her abrupt body movements that coincided with the emphatic ends to several of the songs, Brown's hands going up with Jones' drumsticks at one point and then standing up at the end of the extended closing crescendo of Grandfather.

Take It Easy, as the name indicates, was on the more laid-back side.

Sabrina Williams did the Click Song and host Heather Grant read congratulatory 'postcards' from several persons, among them musician and doctor, Philip 'Doc' Martin and broadcaster Dermot Hussey, who said "to become a great musician is indeed a mission".

One person from St Lucia called Kathy Brown "Jamaica's high priestess of piano", while her bother simply said "Congratulations sis, all the best for the album".

- The Jamaica Gleaner Friday | March 28, 2008

Michael Reckord, Gleaner Writer


Kathy Brown plays with feeling. - File

The launch, of what is intended to be a regular noontime concert series, hosted by United States Ambassador, Brenda La Grange, took place at the United States Embassy on Friday.

Dr Kathy Brown was the featured musician. In addition to being a practising medical doctor, the multi-talented Brown plays, sings, composes and arranges music. She's also a band leader and recording artiste.

Seated at her Kurzweil K2500X keyboard half-way up the curvilinear iron stairs, she gave evidence of only some of those talents in her 45-minute concert, but the eight items she presented were quite delightful....
...Above all, the music was marvellous.

Brown played eight tunes and, between numbers, she chatted pleasantly, mainly to give some background to her pieces or to explain the genesis of her compositions. She started off with a bright and breezy version of the standard Autumn Leaves, a favourite of hers, she said.

Next came two linked African tunes, Yakhal'Inkomo and African Celebration, the latter being her own work. There was great variety in the pieces, which were at times slow and meditative, sometimes fast, sometimes folksy. They earned Brown long, enthusiastic applause. The musician said when she went to South Africa, she fell in love with both the choral music and the jazz of the country.

Then came Take it Easy, also Brown's, a varied composition with folk and Spanish influences. It was dramatic, in that its rhythms and breaks mimicked the call and response dialogue found in many Jamaican folk songs.

A semi-classical rendition of Marley's Jammin followed, with Brown explaining that prior to a trip to Suriname, she was asked to do that version. It took her four days.

Preparing to move into her Latin-flavoured final three items - El Rumbon, El Matador and Latin Groove, Brown said she enjoyed and was influenced by the music of Colombia, Mexico, Cuba and Brazil. Latin Groove is to be found on one of her CDs, Mission A Musical Journey.

She plays a lot of jazz

Brown grew up "in a home where the sound of music was ever-present," and that she formally studied music in high school, at college in the US and at the University of the West Indies.

Her studies certainly paid off. She has become a fine, much-respected musician and her concert on Friday earned her a standing ovation.


- The Jamaica Gleaner, Wednesday | June 4, 2008

Michael Reckord, Contributor

AT REDBONES the Blues Café on Wednesday night, the Kathy Brown and Friends Quintet delighted a garden-full of people with sparkling jazz under the stars.

Ending at midnight, the two-hour-plus programme, not including a half-hour break, offered the toe-tapping, head-bobbing audience 15 tunes. These included Jamaican compositions - How Could I Live?, Get Up, Stand Up, and By the Rivers of Babylon - and standards like One-Note Samba, Poinciana, and Take Five.

One unexpected highlight was a song by the talented Josette La Hee, who delivered a soulful Summertime. At minutes to midnight, after bassist Donald Waugh had bade then goodnight, the crowd insisted on "one for the road," as one man put it. The band thereupon delivered another standard, Ain't No Sunshine.

Outstanding instrumentalists were Brown, whose fingers, flying over or caressing the keyboards, evoked a variety of moods, and the always-satisfying trap set artiste Desi Jones. Making up the rest of the quintet on the tree-covered, pepper-light decorated garden stage were drummers Djenne Greaves and Matthew Maharaj.

The quintet brought some freshness to all of the pieces, but there were a few truly memorable ones. The Brazilian number Macumba, for example, which climaxed the first half of the gig, featured an extended drum segment. Even Brown played congas for a while.

- The Jamaica Gleaner, Saturday , November 9, 2002

Basil Walters, Observer staff reporter

Brown's performance chemistry has everything to do with her ability to enchant .....Dr Kathy Brown's performance chemistry has everything to do with her ability to enchant and to utilise her God-given gift of artistic resources. Her piano artistry was exemplary and executed with an air of rhapsody.

Perhaps wrongly billed as Battle of the Ivories, Sunday's Jazz in the Gardens was anything but a battle, confrontation, or a showdown of any kind. In fact, the jazz concert featuring eight of the finest keyboard specialists, was more like melodies by the scores in a show of harmony on the ivories.

A home of sweet, smooth jazz music - this was what the lawn of the Pegasus Hotel was transformed into on this occasion. Providing a backdrop tapestry rich in musical delights to which patrons at the well-attended event were treated, were keyboard maestros the likes of Harold Butler, Peter Ashbourne, Dennis Rushton, Dr Kathy Brown, Robbie Lyn, Harold Davis, André Campbell and Ralph Holding.

The fans were pleased as they were thoroughly entertained by some highly-infectious and energetically performed musical selections. Far from being a clash of any kind, this version of Jazz in the Gardens was a strategic alliance of sorts, particularly during the grand finale when all eight participants shared the stage at the same time while alternating in the spotlight with individual solos.


- The Jamaica Observer, Friday, July 04, 2008