Jazz-piano legacy embraces father's style

Keith Brown, son of acclaimed Memphis jazz pianist Donald Brown, makes his hometown debut tonight at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre.

When he was 5 years old, Keith Brown's father, acclaimed jazz pianist Donald Brown, moved the family from Memphis to Knoxville, where the elder Brown remains an esteemed professor of jazz at the University of Tennessee.

Over the next two decades, the son has visited his birthplace frequently, always playing the part of the far-flung relative or the husband of Tamara Brown, another relocated Memphian and musician. But when he returns Friday to perform on stage at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre's Black Box Theater, the pianist will be in the new role of budding international jazz recording artist.

"This will be my first (concert in the Memphis area)," Brown says of his hometown debut as leader of his own group as part of GPAC's "Jazz In the Box" series. "And I'm kind of excited about it."

Last April, a month before he graduated from the University of Tennessee with a master's degree in music, Brown put out Sweet & Lovely, his debut release on France's Space Time Records. The relaxed set of romantic standards and originals revealed the subtle influence of Brown heroes like Herbie Hancock and Robert Glasper. But around the notes, one can also hear that the expatriate is part of a long line of acclaimed Bluff City pianists that includes Phineas Newborn Jr. and his own father.

"I think my pops is definitely one of my biggest influences," says Brown, whose father was nicknamed "Silk" by Wynton Marsalis during their stint together in drummer Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. "But also Mulgrew Miller and James Williams and some of those people he came up listening to that I guess I came up listening to by association. Those guys are part of me without my even knowing it."

It was not always clear that Brown would follow in his father's footsteps. As a child, Brown, like his brothers, musicians Kenneth and Donald Jr., had musical tastes that were out of sync with his father's.

"No, there was never any doubt growing up that I would be involved with music, but involved with jazz? Yes," says Brown, who began piano lessons at age 8. "Not that I didn't like jazz. I just didn't know much about it except for my dad's music. Me and my brothers, we all did music, but we were more into hip-hop and rap and stuff."

To keep them interested, Donald Brown would teach his sons Stevie Wonder songs. And the boys kept up their music and played in bands. But it wasn't until he graduated high school that Brown really began take the piano seriously.

"I always enjoyed playing the piano, and when I graduated, I guess I was looking for something to do," he says. "I don't know if I was looking to play jazz as much as I was looking to play the piano and play music."

In college, Brown kept his feet in both musical worlds, becoming an adept student of jazz while also playing in bands like the popular Knoxville funk band Aftah Party. He forged his own style, combining the blues-tinged bop styling of his Memphis predecessors with a contemporary R&B and hip-hop awareness.

But when it came time to record his first album, Brown stuck with the basics. That was partly a result of the thrown-together nature of the project. The recording sessions that became Sweet & Lovely were originally supposed to feature Donald Brown, but when the father had to pull out at the last minute for health reasons, the son stepped in.

"Because of the time element, I don't think I had as much of a vision for the whole thing other than trying to find some songs and make some arrangements that I felt would go over well," Brown says of the sessions that came together in a matter of weeks. "I got to do a little bit of my original music, but for the most part it had to be a lot of standards, which is fine but took a lot out of it as far as getting a concept."

Now that he's out of graduate school, Brown is mulling a move to a bigger city with a more active jazz scene and plotting his follow-up to Sweet & Lovely; it's a record he says is bound to be more experimental.

"That first album was meant to be a bit more traditional, more coming home," says Brown, who next will be heard on a new CD from saxophonist Greg Tardy. "As far as my own stuff that I'm writing now, it's more experimental. I'd definitely like to do some stuff that's a little more out there and getting to some different sounds."

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Keith Brown & the BluePrint

8:30 p.m. Friday at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre, 1801 Exeter. Tickets: $25, available at the box office and by phone at (901) 751-7500. For more information, visit gpacweb.com.

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