|
contents | jazz | |||||||||||||
| Oscar Brown Jr., a singer, songwriter, playwright and actor died Sunday in a Chicago hospital. He was 78 and lived in Chicago The cause was complications from a blood infection. Brown was most often described as a jazz singer, and he initially achieved fame by putting lyrics to well-known jazz instrumentals like Miles Davis' "All Blues" and Mongo Santamaria's "Afro Blue," but efforts to categorize him usually failed. As a performer, he acted his songs more than he sang them; as a songwriter, he drew as much from gospel, the blues and folk music as he did from jazz. He saw his art as a way to celebrate black life and attack racism, and it was not always easy to tell where the entertainer ended and the activist began. His song "Brown Baby," recorded by Mahalia Jackson and others, was both a lullaby for his infant son and an anthem of racial pride. Other songs, like "Signifying Monkey" and "The Snake," took their story lines from black folklore. The album "We Insist! Freedom Now Suite," for which Brown wrote lyrics to the drummer Max Roach's music, was one of the first jazz works to address the civil rights movement. His most famous stage show "Opportunity, Please Knock," was created in 1967 with members of the Blackstone Rangers, a street gang. write your comments about the article :: © 2005 Jazz News :: home page |