Anthony Brown improvises on history

By Ann-Marie Stillion
Northwest Asian Weekly

Percussionist, composer and ethnomusicologist Anthony Brown is director of the Asian American Orchestra, a group founded in 1997 while Brown served as director of Big Bands Behind Barbed Wire, a federally funded educational program.

AAO's "Far East Suite" CD received a Grammy nomination in 2000 for Best Large Jazz Ensemble. The CD has been described as "brilliant" and "amazing" by the jazz community and listening audiences. More than one review expresses that his carefully researched work is the fulfillment of the best of Duke Ellington's vision. The bandleader came to Seattle in May to perform with some AAO members at the Ethnic Music Theatre and spoke at the University of Washington and Richard Hugo House in a forum sponsored by Wing Luke Asian Museum. The visit was, in part, a way to begin showcasing his newest project, "Monk's Moods." An interpretation of Thelonious Monk, the album once again leads the listener on a musical journey, weaving in and out of East and West in surprising and innovative ways - an approach that has become the Bay Area composer and arranger's signature. The Coltrane homage was first released as a downloadable at Emusic this year, and will be re-released on his own label sometime later this year.

It seems he has spent a lifetime knocking down stereotypes and busting out of every mold set for him in one form or another. In a recent interview with jazz journalist Bill Minor, published at jazzwest.com, Brown said, "I never wanted to be just a drummer, I always wanted to be musician." Apparently, he didn't just want to be a musician; he wanted to be a musician's musician. Brown has earned a master's degree in jazz performance from Rutgers University, along with an M.A. and Ph.D. in music (ethnomusicology) from U.C. Berkeley. He has also served as curator of American Musical Culture and director of the Jazz Oral History Program at the Smithsonian Institution.

He began his slide show and talk at Richard Hugo House on "what is Asian American jazz and why I do it" with a family portrait of his father and mother. Both parents are wearing traditional Japanese clothing.

"Most people say, 'You don't really look Asian,' and I say, 'That's probably true, I probably don't look Asian for the most part,'" he said with a beaming smile. "This photo . . . , taken of my parents following their marriage, was taken in 1950. My father was assigned to Tokyo as part of the occupational forces of the U.S. Army following World War II.

"My mother is a native of Tokyo . . . she and her co-workers at the Isuzu factory in the accounting office would go down to the American service club on the weekends where they would play jazz. It was the only place after the war that they could hear jazz. My mother was a jitterbugger, she loved to jitterbug dance."

Brown's father, African American and Choctaw, was the assistant manager of the club. He invited them in one night and, as he says, "The rest is history."

Brown celebrates that his music has not evolved in isolation. His 1998 CD "Family" not only makes a musical statement, mixing and blending Eastern and Western musical concepts, but also stands as witness to Japanese internment and the bombing of Hiroshima. On "Family" he also collaborated with San Jose Taiko.

He is quick to point out that many of the leaders in the exciting creation of Asian American jazz movement live, play and collaborate in the Bay Area, also the birthplace of student activism in the 1960s. In other words, he speaks in a political way, through music, about diverse and vital subjects.

Asian American Orchestra itself has been a kind of musical "united nations" with a heavy component of critically-acclaimed leaders from San Francisco's Asian American creative music movement, including Jon Jang, Mark Izu, Francis Wong; and Wayne Wallace, Melecio Magdaluyo and John Worley from Latin jazz; along with Hafez Modirzadeh, Yang Qin Zhao and Qi Chao Liu.

The jazz drummer stresses that "we are still defining the term jazz." One of his slides was a reproduction of a congressional resolution passed in 1987 "to identify and recognize jazz as a rare and valuable national American treasure."

"Jazz is an inclusive art form, an inclusive culture that was born in America and allows for participation from all Americans regardless of race, culture, age, ethnic background," he pointed out. Pulling a quarter from his pocket, he read us the motto "E pluribus unum": out of many, one.

That process of finding one voice out of many is driving the rare and amazing career of Anthony Brown. Endlessly fascinated by exploration, which is both universal and personal, his music contributes to the development of an ever-expanding sound and, at the same time, the cataloguing of history and culture.