Jazz Connection Magazine

Smooth Jazz Guitarist Norman Brown Goes From "Chillin'" To "Coolin'" On New CD

Smooth Jazz guitarist Norman Brown, above, performing at a concert at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Sacramento, CA, last

February. The Grammy Award-winning Brown has been a formidable presence on the Smooth Jazz charts for the past 13

and intends to remain so with the release of his new CD, West Coast Coolin'. - Stephen Fratallone/Jazz Connection Magazine

For the past two years, Norman Brown has been "chillin'" and now he's "coolin' out." The Grammy Award-winning Smooth Jazz guitarist with the ingratiating smile whose energetic and electrifying guitar stylings have won him ardent admirers, an enduring presence on jazz charts and a bounty of industry awards, has put all of his musical eggs together into one new album.

Last month, Brown released his sixth CD, his third on the Warner Bros. Records label, with West Coast Coolin'. (See Norman Brown CD) It comes on the heels of his critically acclaimed 2002 album, Just Chillin', which won a Grammy in the Best Pop Instrumental Category.

"I wanted to make a record that put all my skills together - everything that I've been practicing and working on," said Brown, 41, in a telephone conversation from his home in Granada Hills, CA. "It's a combination of writing, not only by myself but with other people. That was a real challenge for me. I also wanted to get over that 'hump' and learn some new things. On top of that, I wanted to get the experience of vocalizing in the studio. I wanted give my fans what I had to give."

What Brown has given his fans is a ten-track collection of sonic adventure - written and co-written by the artist - that fuses pop, R&B and jazz, while showcasing Brown's flare as a distinctive urban vocalist.

"My fans were after me to do more singing," explained Brown on the impetus behind West Coast Coolin'. "I had been scatting with the guitar for some time now and people automatically connected it with singing. In order to hear some songs, I had to sing the melody. I actually used to sing a lot when I was younger. I sang in choirs at school as well as in quartets and other small groups. When I got into instrumental music, I lost my taste for singing and focused on the guitar. It came back around that I needed that 'instrument' as well (laughs). It's about getting into the voice inside to make your instrument sing like that. It's a cool thing."

Although the music may be cool, it also exudes lots of vibrant energy, a Brown trademark. The guitarist's urban vocals are given center stage on three James Poyser compositions: I Might, Angel, and Come Over.

I Might was the Number One most-added song on Urban AC the week of August 23 and debuted on the Urban AC Chart at Number 28. And the numbers are rising.

Brown's funky, yet dazzling display of guitar works are heard on key cuts like Up 'N' At 'Em, Let's Play and Brian Culbertson's Right Now, which the keyboard wizard also produced.

"Brian called me saying he had a great tune for me," Brown said. "I listened to the song and I loved it. I did some writing on it, too."

Also included on West Coast Coolin' is Brown's own unique take on the Marvin Gaye signature tune, What's Going On.

"This song has always been a favorite of mine," Brown said. "I hadn't planned on doing any remakes on this album. But this is a song I've been doing in my live shows almost since I've been recording. The audience gets up out of their seats when we do this piece. It really connects. It was time to record it."

Like the album's tenor of cool sounds, the album's title is reflective of that, according to Brown.

"I live on the West Coast and I just came off the Just Chillin' album which won a Grammy - you just can't put that to bed," Brown said. "I'm still kind of in that mode and so we are cooling out now. The whole album has a vibe of a West Coast energy thing."

While energy is at the very core of Brown's music, that energy is centered more around the guitar wonder's vocals than in his previous five albums, he said.

"On the Just Chillin' album I featured a number of singers," Brown explained. "That provided for me the introduction to vocals. Now, I've taken it further where I'm doing all the vocals. I think that's a big difference along with the way the tracks are put together. They come together in more of a collaborative effort more so than just me working in a vacuum creating and writing everything myself. It brings broader opinions to the pie. It makes it more of a bigger production, I think."

Although Brown assumed all the vocal duties himself on the new CD, he did so without any trepidation. To his way of thinking, it was carpe diem time.

"I said, 'Here we go, time to do it now,'" Brown said. "I've been practicing. I've been doing this live. I've experimented on my records as well. I sang one song, Never Again, on my After The Storm album. I've matured under my producers making this the right time to do this. When people people hear it, it will kind of be the mold. If it's working, it will be the model of my sound, so to speak. I really wanted to make sure it was the right sound, that it was saying what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it."

Assisting Brown in the process was crack producer Paul Brown, the man behind the scenes for both Just Chillin' and its predecessor, 2000's Celebration.

"Paul has been an integral part of my artistry," Brown said. "He has a great sensibility for music. He has a good ear. He'll hear things from me that I didn't hear at the moment because I was playing it. You always need that objective ear around you, someone that's coming from that 'outer place.' That has to be an important part of the relationship. I think I found that with Paul."

As would be expected, Paul Brown's sensibilities have had a pervasive influence on the success of the past three releases for the dazzling guitarist.

"It's a collaborative effort," Brown said. "We fight a lot (laughs), which brings out whatever the best is instead of our opinions of what we think it is. Paul argues his point. I do the same. Usually, the one that makes the most sense is the one we end up going with. It's a good little system that eliminates the crap."

While Brown's last album achieved such critical and commercial success, subsequent projects, in the minds of some critics, would have to equal or surpass it. Brown realizes that there is pressure to record future albums at an artistically higher level, he said.

"The pressure is really subtle and it's subconscious," Brown said. "I know it's there. It doesn't drive me. I don't think about it. It doesn't bother me in any way. I keep on what I'm doing and I keep growing. It almost gives you a sense of security to try some new things while keeping the foundations of what you have. It's like saying to yourself, 'Yeah! Yeah! This is the way to go. Keep going!'"

Brown's fans have been anticipating this new release, which was two years coming, he said.

"My fans have been very patient with me and I really try to deliver for them when I do come out," Brown said.

"I'm genuinely honest as to who I am and what I love to do," he said. "I work very hard at it, too. I'm very anal retentive. I work hard at it from my perspective and the people's perspective. I just don't create music and art for myself. Everything I do, from my practicing to my writing to the production sounds are all influenced by people's views as well as my own."

It's Brown's hope that people will be uplifted and inspired by listening to West Coast Coolin', he said.

Brown's ascension to the forefront of the Smooth Jazz arena began when he was born in Shreveport, LA. Shortly after his family relocated to Kansas City, MO, Brown took up the guitar at age eight after hearing his older brother play.

"My brother and cousin had a three-piece band - guitar, bass and drums - and they would set up in the living room and just jam," Brown said. "People from the neighborhood would come over and stand around and listen. It was like a magnet for people having a good time."

"Jimi was playing some incredible stuff!" Brown said. "He blew my mind making the guitar sound like that. I fell into the guitar out of that kind of curiosity. It was something special once I touched it."

At age 10, Brown became so proficient on the guitar that he landed a gig with Magnum Force, a band formed by some local guys in high school. During the performance, the young guitarist imitated Jimi Hendrix by playing the instrument behind his neck.

Once Brown's steelworker father saw that his younger son was serious about the guitar, he introduced him to the music of jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery. After that, everything changed. The young guitarist began including contemporary jazz tunes and standards in his repertoire.

"I found that jazz was less limiting to play with all the different types of harmonies, different types of scales, different grooves," Brown said. "No other music could you do that in. The popular music was restrictive, too. I didn't like being confined to that so that drew me more into jazz."

While in junior high school, Brown was introduced by his music teacher to Kansas City guitar giant Sonny Kenner.

As a student at Wyandotte High School, Brown's high school music teacher would take him to the Mutual Musicians' Foundation to jam.

"That's how I was molded," Brown said. "I grew up playing with these older musicians who grew up when Kansas City was a hub in the jazz world back in the 1930s and '40s. Some of these guys came back from the war and they had two fingers or one arm. They were still musicians and they got together to play. The experience was incredible. I'd be reading the charts and taking solos and these cats would pull me off to the side and encourage me to try this or that. The crowds there would eat up the music if it was good. It was inspiring. It drove you. You wanted to get better and to practice more. Then we had those cold winters where there wasn't much to do but to sit down in the basement and practice. All that did help shape who I've become."

After graduation from high school in 1981, Brown's increasing interest in jazz guitar led him to study formally at the Musicians Institute in Los Angeles. Following his graduation from the Musicians' Institute, he taught there briefly while gigging around Los Angeles with his own group, perfecting his playing style.

It's been said that Brown has such an emotional expressiveness and sound in his hands with a watery technique that resembles Wes Montgomery. His agility, fluid articulation, and use of octaves in his solos and melody playing have an excitement that makes people stop and listen. Other times, his playing melts into the background of a song, providing atmospheric color and depth.

"I would say my style of playing is energetic, electrifying," Brown said. "I really like to move my listeners. There's a lot of passion in my playing. I really love what I do so much that I kind of step out of it and it starts taking over and happening (laughs). When that happens, it's incredible. When I see how it makes people feel, it makes me want to do it all the more. When people come to my shows, they come to be entertained. They want to hear the music, of course, but they can stay home and listen to the record. I want to give something more."

What people see at live shows is a very buff-looking Norman Brown with well-defined biceps, wearing brightly-colored and trendy outfits that accent his formidable physique. While exuding a noticeable sexual persona on stage, Brown feels it neither helps nor hinders his artistry, he said.

"I don't let it bother me either way," Brown said. "People have that opinion and man, who am I to say what they like? (laughs) I'm a physical guy. I work out. I exercise to keep myself in shape. I can understand that. We live in a visual world and I'm going to roll with it. (laughs) It doesn't define who I am. I'm glad it's not all I have to go on. I can actually play and sing. If it's just about being a pretty boy, I'd be very insecure."

Another major influence that Brown would append to his sound and style was Pittsburgh's own masterful guitarist and vocalist George Benson. Brown occasionally scats (sings non-sense syllables) in unison with his guitar solos and melodies. Benson is known as the innovator to combine his vocal with his guitar lines.

"It's to inspire and uplift," he said. "That's what I really want to do with my art. Otherwise, I don't know what it's for."

In 1991, Brown splashed into the soul-jazz scene landing his first recording contract with Motown's MoJazz label, where he recorded his first three albums.

His 1992 debut, Just Between Us, sold an impressive 150,000 copies and included a stellar line up of Smooth Jazz and Urban artists: saxophonists Gerald Albright, Kirk Whalum, and Ronnie Laws, plus Stevie Wonder and Boys II Men on Too High.

Things have been going Brown's way since. In fact, the guitar sensation admitted that he was surprised as to how quickly he has "come up" in the Smooth Jazz world, he said.

"I was very surprised by the response to my first album," Brown said. "To me, it didn't sound like what I thought people wanted to hear. I was wrong about that. I loved it as I wrote the music. I just thought people wanted to hear something sounding different. Man, was I wrong! They really took to my music and my records. So, it was right on time."

While many musical artists balk at being categorized or labeled in any one particular musical genre, Brown does not. He's comfortable being associated with the Smooth Jazz format, he said.

Guitarist Norman Brown, right, is joined on stage with saxophonist Kirk Whalum, left, and trumpeter

Rick Braun, center, for a performance of BWB Groovin' at the Radisson Hotel's "Concerts in the Grove"

series in Sacramento, CA, in July 2003. - Photo by Stephen Fratallone/Jazz Connection Magazine

In 1994, Brown's second album, After The Storm, broke big and was named Jazz Album Of The Year by both Gavin (the publication that provides the official airplay charts for each music genre) and Soul Train, remaining on the charts for over two years, edging its way towards gold. It remains Brown's biggest selling album.

Release number three, Better Days Ahead, garnered Brown a 1997 American Jazz Award for Contemporary Guitar, and the album’s title track and first single was the most-added in Smooth Jazz/NAC history up to that point.

After a successful career at Motown Jazz, Brown debuted on the mammoth Warner Bros. label with the release of Celebration in 2000. Contrary to the festiveness the title might suggest, the general mood of the album is a mellow one compared to his previous high-energy albums. The music is highly rhythmic, melodically ascendant while delivering a laidback lift.

In 2002, Just Chillin' continued the laid-back mood of Celebration, thus earning for Brown the highest award bestowed by the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

In January of that same year, Brown teamed up with label mates saxophonist Kirk Whalum and trumpeter Rick Braun to record BWB Groovin'... (B for Braun, W for Whalum, B for Brown). The album features reinterpretations of contemporary pop songs mixed with classic R&B and soul-jazz influences that are saturated with infectious grooves.

Being part of such a thunderous triumvirate to record and to tour appealed to Brown for a number reasons, he said.

"First of all, I got to hear different lines, different musical ideas from Kirk and Rick," Brown said. "Secondly, I've never been a sideman. I've never really played with other artists like myself. With the exception of touring once with George Howard for a few weeks, I really never had toured with other artists. BWB brought that in for me."

The BWB album and its 2002-2003 tour proved highly successful and popular. A BWB II record and tour are being planned, according to Brown.

"We love playing together and the people took to this combination," Brown said. "We are getting together to put into place our concept. The first time, Warner Bros. came to us about it. Now, after doing the record and touring together, we know who we are as a group. So we are going to come out that way now."

In light of the changes that occurred earlier this year when Warner Bros. Records dissolved its jazz department, giving many of its top recording jazz artist's their pink slips, Brown, who has been reshuffled to the R&B department, remains optimistic about his future with the label, he said.

"They seem so supportive," Brown said. "They love West Coast Coolin'. They've given me a lot of signs that they are totally behind it and that they believe in what I'm doing. Man, that means a lot to me considering the climate."

With his musical artistry still evolving, Brown also has other career irons in the fire. He's written books on guitar techniques and is planning to produce instructional guitar videos in the near future, he said.

"I did a lot of teaching and I miss teaching so this is sort of a way to do that," Brown said. "People would ask me questions all the time how to improve on this or that. I thought it would be a great idea to do a lesson. I put a feeler out to see how much interest was out there. The response was great. Now, I just have to go ahead an tape these lessons."

The concept for these videos would provide music theory pointers for both the novice as well as the professional, Brown said.

"There are ways of looking at this music and how to play an instrument that I think I can help people gain some insight," he said. "That's what I want to do."

The videos could compliment the instructional books Brown already has out on the market, he said.

"The first video will start with a self-evaluation," Brown said. "One thing I've found teaching at seminars is that students don't know how to re-evaluate where they are, where they want to go and what to do to get there. I came up with a lesson on that so that's a great place to start. Anyone at any level can start with that to improve themselves."

Brown plans to offer his instructional videos on his website at www.normanbrown.com , he said.

"I first want to offer an 'appetizer' free on my website," Brown said. "Then a person can buy videos with more depth on there."

In addition to hashing out final plans for another BWB record and tour, Brown remains busy writing new material, he said.

After finishing up his current tour with his own band early next month, Brown will join saxophonist Dave Koz to be part of the Dave Koz and Friends Smooth Jazz Christmas Tour. The tour begins Nov. 26 and runs to Dec. 22. (Check Brown's website for concert dates and venues.)

"I'm going back into it," Brown said. "I started off doing that. I did a lot of work on my first record under the guidance of my first producer. He guided me. I took it all myself on the After The Storm record. I produced the whole thing, wrote all the music. With my other records, I just wanted to branch out and see how other people work, to learn some new things, and to hone my craft some more. I'll get back to producing myself."

Throughout his impressive13-year career in Smooth Jazz, Brown remains appreciative of being an integral part of the genre's arena, fostered by its family-like atmosphere.

"We are all grateful," Brown said. "That's what it stands for as musicians.. We're grateful that we can have a voice as an artist and have an outlet to get that."

But with that gratitude also comes a mission that's a burning fire in Brown's belly.

"Some of it is taken for granted because the music business evolves around singers," Brown said. "Without singing, we can't even get on television. It's ridiculous, it really is. I'm going to sing and keep playing. Hopefully, I can bridge that gap. If I can get some exposure from being a vocalist, I can't wait to talk about this and bring it to light. Shows like Star Search or American Idol feature vocalists. Some talent shows even feature dancing and comedy categories. How come they can't have an instrumentalist category? That discriminates against people who want to learn to play musical instruments. That's how we're going to have to do it, to get more artists who play musical instruments to sing."

Until that times comes, Brown will continue, in his own immutable way, to make his own musical statements concerning the guitar as an extraordinary solo instrument that imitates very closely the human voice.

"The guitar is right up there with the saxophone," Brown said. "Everyone says the saxophone is the closest instrument to the human voice. But the guitar can sing just as well. I think players such as George Benson, Jeff Golub and myself are showing that the guitar sings as well."

In the meantime, Brown will forge ahead making his own unique contribution to the continuum of jazz by hopefully being a musical inspiration to others, he said.

"I want to inspire younger people to play better than I do, to do more things with that instrument," Brown said. "From that standpoint, I do want to carry on that torch, so to speak."