This name also represents a musician who had intelligent understanding and awareness of social, moral, and economic problems which constantly confuse the jazz musician, sometimes to the point of hopeless rebellion.

In the summer of 1953, while I was working with the Lionel Hampton band in Wildwood, N.J., I begged Hamp to hire three of the musicians from Tadd Dameron's band, which was nearing the end of its Atlantic City engagement: Gigi Gryce, Benny Golson, and Clifford Brown. They were all hired and then began an association that I'll always be grateful to Lionel for.

Brownie stayed on to go to Europe with this band and became closely associated with several other young musicians who were of growing importance in the jazz world, such as Art Farmer, Anthony Ortega, Jimmy Cleveland, Alan Dawson, and George Wallington. Although this band never played in the states together, I think it was one of the best Hamp ever had.

By means of an ex-tensive recording schedule abroad, Brownie came first to the eyes and ears of the French and Swedish jazzmen and a new thoroughbred was on the jazz scene. The uniting of Clifford Brown with the trumpet must have been declared from above. For seldom does a musical vehicle prove to be so completely gratifying as the trumpet was to Clifford.

Here was the perfect amalgamation of natural creative ability, and the proper amount of technical training, enabling him to contribute precious moments of musical and emotional expression. This inventiveness placed him in a class far beyond that of most of his poll-winning contemporaries. Clifford's self-assuredness in his playing reflected the mind and soul of a blossoming young artist who would have rightfully taken his place next to Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and other leaders in jazz.

In this generation where some well-respected and important pioneers condemn the young for going ahead, Brownie had a very hard job. He constantly struggled to associate jazz, it's shepherds, and it's sheep, with a cleaner element, and held no room in his heart for bitterness about the publicity-made popularity and success of some of his pseudo-jazz giant brothers, who were sometimes very misleading morally and musically. As a man and a musician, he stood for a perfect example and the rewards of self-discipline.

It is really a shame that in this day of such modern techniques of publicity, booking, promoting, and what have you, a properly-backed chimpanzee can be a success after the big treatment. Why can't just one-tenth of these efforts be placed on something that is well-respected, loved, and supported in every country in the world but it's own?

Except for a very chosen few, the American music business man and the majority of the public (the Elvis Depressley followers specifically) have made an orphan out of jazz, banishing its creators and true followers and adopting idiots that could be popular no place else in the universe. I'll go so far as to bet that the salaries of Liberace, Cheeta, and Lassie alone could pay the yearly cost of booking every jazzman in the country.

This is why it's such a shame that Clifford Brown, Charlie Parker, Fats Navarro, and others have to leave the world so unappreciated except for a small jazz circle. I hope some of us live to see a drastic change.

In June, 1950, Clifford Brown's career was threatened by an auto accident while he was with the Chris Powell band, which kept him from his horn for a whole year. Exactly six years later, by the same means of an auto accident, death took its toll of Clifford Brown, along with his pianist Richard Powell (brother of Bud Powell), and Richard's wife.

Clifford, at 25, was at the beginning of showing capabilities parallel only to those of Charlie Parker. T