Listen & tracks

9 works · 43:29

1 Wildflowers Brian Brown 10:43
2 Mr. Speer Brian Brown 3:11
3 Bewitched Richard Rodgers 3:14
4 Waterfall Brian Brown 3:23
5 Spacewalk Brian Brown 2:35
6 Little Rainbow Brian Brown 2:26
7 The Old Stockrider Brian Brown 11:10
8 Midnight Ghost Brian Brown 5:06
9 Sawade Brian Brown 1:41

Brian Brown's musical career began by replicating America's ferociously driving hard-bop jazz of the 1950s in mild-mannered Australia. He later sought a modern jazz that escaped the thrall of the American model.

There is remarkable variety here – lyrical romanticism, nervous discovery, delight, pathos, fast reflex responses and close interaction with different fellow musicians.

In the artist’s words

Having been a listener, then a member of two of his groups; then a collaborator, and over the past few years a listener again, I find I can stand both inside and outside Brian's music.

Listening to Wildflowers from this composite position, I hear an array of elements which I know make up his particular sound art. Yet, because he allows none to become conspicuously prominent or laboured, we are given freedom to listen to the music. At no stage are we burdened with stylistic declarations or forced to contend with instrumental gymnastics.

On side A all of these elements are there to discover; on side B several are there to explore.

Perhaps the most important is Brian's continuing ability to create situations highly conducive to creative here-now music. Give in to Bob's solo on Mr. Speer, Brian's solo on Midnight Ghost and their spiralling duet on Sawade and you'll find three timeless movements offered as gifts for repeated taking.

After the composed narrative of the Stockrider, concluded poignantly by Nehama, Katya and Dure, the Ghost and Sawade are heightened experiences of totally in-the-present, spontaneous interaction.

This album is music liberated from any obligation to fashion or idiom. If you approach it with preconceptions about jazz for example, the predominant idiom of Brian's past, you'll be perplexed to say the least! To the contrary, it offers an experience which requires open-heartedness. It is a positive documentation that Brian Brown plays his own music out of his own environment and time, and that he invites/inspires his colleagues to do the same. The result is music-making energy, raw refusal to comply, lyrical romanticism, nervous discovery, delight, pathos, fast reflex responses and close interaction, as distinct from music reproduction which so often seems to be the recording industry's predominant interest.

This music is a personal synthesis of invention in the present and respect for past origins. It is a celebration of independence to be catalogued under “music for the love of music”.

— David Tolley

Artists

Brian Brown

flute, pan flute, alto flute, soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, synthesiser, percussion

Brian Brown (1933–2013) was an Australian jazz saxophonist, flautist, composer and educator whose original music helped define a local improvising voice. From the 1950s he led his own ensembles and later founded improvisation studies at the Victorian College of the Arts.

Barry Buckley

composer

Barry Buckley (1938–2006) was an Australian jazz double bassist, best known as the original bass player in the Ted Vining Trio.

Lorenz Hart

composer

Lorenz Hart's lyrics for Rodgers and Hart still sit at the heart of the jazz and cabaret songbook: witty, conversational, and edged with a rueful tenderness that singers and players keep returning to.

Richard Rodgers

composer

Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) was an American composer of musical theatre whose songs became standards of the twentieth-century stage and screen. Over five decades he wrote more than nine hundred songs and dozens of Broadway musicals.

Bob Sedergreen

composer

Pianist Bob Sedergreen is one of the greatest blues performers this country has produced, and he is blessed with a wonderful style of musical humour.

Digital booklet

Digital booklet Notes, texts and credits — read online or download the PDF Download the PDF

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$20.00 AUD

Compact disc

Buywell Music Australian Music Centre

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Also available to download from the iTunes Store.

Performers

Brian Brown · flute, pan flute, alto flute, soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, synthesiser, percussion
Bob Sedergreen · piano · tracks 1–6 and 9
Tony Gould · piano · track 1
Stephen Hadley · double bass · track 1
Alex Pertout · percussion · track 1
Geoff Kluke · double bass · tracks 2 and 5
Virgil Donati · drums · tracks 2 and 5
Nehama Patkin · piano · track 7
Chantal Brown · violin · tracks 1 and 7
Katya Brown · cello · track 7
Dure Dara · percussion · track 7
Barry Buckley · double bass · track 8

Technical credits

Recording Engineer David Williams (tracks 3, 4 and 6)
Ian McKenzie (tracks 1 and 2)
Michael Letho (tracks 3–9)
Credit Howard Birnstihl
Simon Boyle