As a professional jazz musician, Phil Brown has no shortage of credits. He presently is based in southern Illinois where he is active as a free-lance bassist.
Since 1991, Brown has been Associate Professor of Jazz Studies and Double Bass, as well as Coordinator of Music Business, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He performs regularly with the New Arts Jazz Quintet, whose growing reputation has placed them at schools and prime jazz venues throughout the Midwest. The NAJQ is featured along with FourOnSix on Phil Brown's latest recording, Darkness Into Light (Carbondale: a caldera productions, 2004). Brown has fronted his own group as well, introduced on the release, Hope Street Saunter (Carbondale: a caldera productions, 2003) with the Phil Brown Quartet, featuring guitarist Fareed Haque, pianist Bradley Williams, and drummer Tom Hipskind. He also can be heard on the compact discs that accompany the two-volume Jazz Tunes For Improvisation by Dan Haerle et al. (Miami: Warner Bros., 1983) with the North Texas State University Faculty Jazz Group; and on a number of other recordings.
Notable among the many other jazz artists with whom Brown has performed are Pepper Adams, Lockjaw Davis, Herb Ellis, Steve Gadd, Red Garland, Dizzy Gillespie, Tom Harrell, Delfeayo Marsalis, Mark Murphy, and Clark Terry.
Brown received his Master of Music Education Degree with an emphasis in jazz studies from North Texas State University. There, as a graduate teaching fellow, he instructed both jazz ensemble and double bass. He was also a member of NTSU's highly acclaimed jazz ensemble, the One O'Clock Lab Band. Brown's undergraduate work was completed at Northwestern University, where he received his Bachelor of Music in Composition.
As a jazz educator, Brown has served as a clinician and adjudicator at a number of jazz camps and festivals, including the Fiesta Jazz Festival, the Longhorn Jazz Festival, the Southern Illinois Jazz Festival, the Wichita Jazz Festival, and most recently, the University of Louisville's Jazz Week.
For several years, Brown was staff arranger for the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, writing a number of "top forty" arrangements for orchestra with rhythm section. These selections have been performed by the Jacksonville, the Louisville, the Hartford, and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestras, among others. His more recent writing efforts have produced over two dozen originals for the New Arts Jazz Quintet. In 2003, the Illinois Arts Council honored Brown for his work and commitment within the arts with an Artist Fellowship Award in music composition.
Brown's bass teachers have included Lawrence Hurst, Ringwalt Warner, Evan Tonsing, Warren Benfield and Edward Rainbow. He studied composition with M. William Karlins and Luciano Berio. Brown is a native of Amarillo, Texas.
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