Patti Bown - R.I.P.

[Bill Barton]

1931-2008

Pianist Patti Bown, born in Seattle, has died at age 76 in a Media, PA nursing home.

There's an obituary in today's print edition of The Seattle Times wriiten by Times Jazz Critic Paul de Barros. For some reason it is not available online. Searches of Philadelphia and other PA newspapers online came up with with no notices.

She recorded quite prolifically, including sessions with Gene Ammons, Bill Coleman, Illinois Jacquet, Etta Jones, Quincy Jones, Cal Massey, Oliver Nelson, Jimmy Rushing, Cal Tjader and Dinah Washington. All Music lists her album from 1960 on Columbia, Plays Big Piano, as her only date as a leader.

R.I.P.

[Bill Barton]

Patti Bown, 76, lit up Seattle's early jazz scene;
Obituary

Paul de Barros, Seattle Times jazz critic


Patti Bown, an idiosyncratic, outspoken, versatile pianist who came up with Quincy Jones on Seattle's Jackson Street jazz scene in the late '40s and became nationally famous, died Sunday from complications from diabetes and kidney failure.

She was 76 years old.

Ironically, Miss Bown died in Pennsylvania the same day Jones was in Seattle, eulogizing two other musicians of his generation Charlie Taylor and Floyd Standifer at the Northwest African American Museum opening concert.

A characteristic quote from Miss Bown is displayed at the museum: "When I walked home from school, I passed the pool parlor and the Mardi Gras and they always had jazz playing. My mother was saying `No!' but the music was sensuous and it said, `Yes!' "

Born Patricia Anne Bown in Seattle in 1931, Bown was one of five daughters and two sons raised in the Central District by Augustus and Edith Bown, who moved to Seattle in 1921.

Music and culture were central to her upbringing. Her mother took her see Marian Anderson, Katherine Dunham and Arthur Rubenstein, and the Bown household was known for its weekend "at-homes," where people played music, and discussed books and politics.

Miss Bown's sister, Edith Mary Valentine, became a concert pianist in an era when it was difficult, if not impossible, for African Americans to enter the classical field. Millie Russell, another sister, recalled Patti at 3 years old astonishing their parents by copying on the piano what she heard Duke Ellington play on the radio.

"I was the only one of the five girls who didn't have perfect pitch," said Russell.

Miss Bown's sister Augie Walker recalled Edith Mary and Patti fighting over who would get to practice at the family piano.

"They'd be pushing on each other, both sitting on the stool and pretty soon the stool would break," she said. "My mother bought three stools in one year."

Though Mrs. Bown played blues piano herself, she forbade Patti from patronizing jazz clubs.

"She'd tell Mama she was going to visit our neighbor, then go out play in those places," recalled Walker. "Sometimes, if Mama found out, she'd lock the door and leave Patti out there for half an hour."

One of Miss Bown's informal jazz tutors was Ray Charles, whom she credited with teaching her how to accompany soloists.

In 1949, Miss Bown won a music scholarship to Seattle University, and in 1952 she performed with the Seattle Symphony. She later transferred to the University of Washington, then moved to New York in 1955. Because of her excellent sight-reading and improvising skills, she was soon in demand in recording studios, which led to her extensive discography (sessions with Dinah Washington, Billy Eckstine, Gene Ammons, Oscar Brown Jr., Jimmy Rushing and Jones himself).

Miss Bown recorded an album as a leader in 1958, "Patti Bown Plays Big Piano" (Columbia), and the following year formed a trio that included drummer Ed Shaughnessy, of Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show" band fame. She later toured Europe for eight months with Jones' big band.

A flamboyant, opinionated woman who wore outrageous hats and brooked no contradiction, Miss Bown often found herself at odds with others though she could be charming and funny, as well.

"She was overbearing and spoiled," recalled her sister Russell, "but she was brilliant."

Miss Bown lived the last 37 years at the Westbeth Artist Housing complex in Greenwich Village, and for many years was a fixture at the Village Gate nightclub. She played in an unpredictable, virtuosic and eclectic style that stretched from Fats Waller stride to avant-garde abstraction.

The late Whitney Balliett, jazz critic for The New Yorker, once described a Miss Bown solo as "an eight-minute lesson in how to make a piece of improvisation so tight and complex it would supply a dozen soloists for a week."

Miss Bown occasionally returned to Seattle to perform, notably at Jazz Alley, the New Orleans Creole Restaurant and at the Museum of History & Industry, in 1993.

According to Pawnee Sills, a close friend who lived in her building, Miss Bown had been "homebound," the last seven or eight years, unable to walk because of her weight and poor circulation. Still, in 2006 she received the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival Award, and last year the Jazz Foundation of America, which assisted Miss Bown the last years of her life, presented her at its annual gala at the Apollo Theatre, where she received a standing ovation.

She moved to a New York nursing home last November, then to one in Media, Pa., where she died.

Miss Bown never married but had one son, the late Tony Bown. She is survived by sisters Edith Mary Valentine, Augie Walker and Millie Russell, and brother David Bown.

Funeral services have not yet been arranged.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I have the CD of Gene Ammons' "Gentle Jug" and I've always dug Bown's contributions to the second half of that disc. I remember seeing her name on that CD when I bought it, wondering if it was a "nom de session" since the name was so unfamiliar.

[Bluebrew]

I have that Ammons session too. I wonder if i can call Patti brown "underrated" without causing too much of a commotion?

[Al in NYC]

I was just listening to her last week, struggling pretty successfully with a very out-of-tune piano, on the very interesting Cal Massey album (I believe his only album) Blues to Coltrane.

An under-appreciated gem. Goodbye Patti.

[mormuse]

Would love to know funeral arrangements...she was a friend of a friend and a friend to many...loved her playing

[mormuse]

She was a friend to many... if you know of any funeral arrangements please post or email to me...mormuse

[Mike Schwartz]

RIP
I have fond memories of seeing her on a regular basis at the old Village Gate in NYC....on the street level, known for having small piano led groups.

There's a Quincy Big Band [early 60's] DVD as part of the Jazz Icon series with Ms. Bown on video that I'll revisit this week.

[stevebop]

From Doug Ramsey's Rifftides:

Patti Bown died last Friday in a Pennsylvania nursing home, little known not only to the general public but also to many jazz listeners. Despite her talent as a pianist, Miss Bown never became celebrated to the degree that she might have. That was for reasons at least partly to do with her uncompromising individualism. Bown.jpgGood breaks, good management and good advice--if she had been willing to take it--could have made a difference. There is strong evidence of her talent on recordings she made as a member of the remarkable Quincy Jones big band and with Gene Ammons, Jimmy Rushing, Illinois Jacquet, Dinah Washington and Oliver Nelson, among others.

In Patti's obituary in Monday's Seattle Times, Paul de Barros described her as "idiosyncratic, outspoken, versatile." He might have added brilliant, well-read and argumentative. I knew her for a time in Seattle before she moved to New York. One night we were at a small party in honor of Dave Brubeck following a concert by his quartet. It was shortly after Brubeck was the subject of a TIME magazine cover story and was becoming famous. Brubeck, Patti and I sat talking at length about the part of the article that dealt with his forthright attitude on racial matters as expressed in a verse sung years later by Louis Armstrong in Brubeck's musical The Real Ambassadors.

'They say I look like God,

Could God be black my God!

If both are made in the image of thee,

Could thou perchance a zebra be?'

How I wish that I had a recording of that conversation, which I remember only as alternating between intensity and laughter.

Patti was a vital and unfailingly interesting part of a Seattle jazz community that also included trumpeter Floyd Standifer and bassist Buddy Catlett. They were all childhood friends of Jones. When he formed the big band he took to Europe in 1959, they were in it, along with others including Phil Woods, Quentin Jackson, Budd Johnson, Melba Liston, Clark Terry and Joe Harris--a cross-section of veterans and emerging stars. Patti is in the rhythm section of that remarkable band on the Quincy Jones DVD in the Jazz Icons series.

Recently, from Holland emerged video clips of a small unit from the Jones band in which Patti was the pianist. The others are Woods, Jackson, Harris (misidentified on the videos as Joe Morris), Catlett and Sahib Shihab. Each of the musicians solos on all three tunes. Patti's chorus on "Straight No Chaser" comes closest to what I remember of the daring, even quirky, aspects of her improvisational style, but she is also eloquent on "Undecided" and "Ornithology." No one takes more than one solo chorus in these clips that run in the neighborhood of three minutes apiece. It is striking how expressive the players are in the forced economy of the time limit. In the post-Coltrane era, that kind of self-editing is all but a lost art.

You may also hear Patti Bown on these CDs:

Quincy Jones: Pure Delight

Oliver Nelson: Afro/American Sketches

Oliver Nelson Verve Jazz Masters (on four tracks)

Gene Ammons: Late Hour Special

Patti Bown, whom I wish I had known longer and better; gone at seventy-six.

[d2leo]

Reading about the Woman in Jazz Series made me think of a wonderful woman and artist.
I have had the pleasure of speaking to Patty Bown, pianist that started with Quincy Jones.
There is a woman who had many obstacles to overcome. Traveling to Europe with Qunicy and playing with the greats and ghosting on many albums.
Does anyone have any information about Patty.

Phil

[Lazaro Vega]

Isn't it "Patti"?

Last time I heard her being interviewed on the radio it was in Chicago in the 1990's. Same pianist that recorded with Gene Ammons?

[d2leo]

No I didn't hear that. When?
I spoke to her the week before she was to be with Quincy at Lincoln Center.

I spoke to her for 3 hours on the phone.

Phil

[d2leo]

I appreciate this sad information. When I spoke to her she was living in New York. I had the impression she was living at Westbeth but she probably was in a nursing home.

pd

[twisted]

Oh.
I met her once at the North Sea Jazz Festival when I was 15 or 16. She was so kind and vibrant and friendly. Spent a little time getting cool stories from her before I even understood how cool they were. I've always kept my eyes open for her as a sidewoman, and managed to snag a copy of that great "Patti Bown Plays Big Piano" LP a few years back. Very sad to hear this news.