Memphis and
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
(twice) between 1942-47. In New York, he first heard the new music called
bebop
Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrum ...
. As one who idolized Young (he even held his saxophone at the same unorthodox 120 degree angle), Moore was at first uncomfortable with it, but as he recalled for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' critic
John S. Wilson in 1968: "When I heard what Bird (
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...
) had done for himself, I realized that Pres was not the complete messiah. So I combined Bird and Pres and my own thing."
Returning to New York in 1948, Moore became a fixture on the city's jazz scene, cutting his first sides as a leader ("Brew Moore and His Playboys,"
Savoy Records) and working with
Machito's orchestra and
Claude Thornhill's Big Band, the
Kai Winding sextet,
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz (February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist. Playing primarily the tenor saxophone, Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, with his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre o ...
and
George Wallington
George Wallington (October 27, 1924 – February 15, 1993) was an American jazz pianist and composer.
Early life
Wallington was born Giacinto Figlia (some sources give "Giorgio") in Sicily, and then moved to the United States (New York) with ...
among others. In 1949, he joined three of the "four brothers" from
Woody Herman
Woodrow Charles Herman (May 16, 1913 – October 29, 1987) was an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading groups called "The Herd", Herman came to prominence in the late 1930s and was active until his dea ...
's celebrated Second Herd (Getz,
Zoot Sims
John Haley "Zoot" Sims (October 29, 1925 – March 23, 1985) was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor but also alto (and, later, soprano) saxophone. He first gained attention in the "Four Brothers" sax section of Woody Herman's big ...
,
Al Cohn
Al Cohn (November 24, 1925 – February 15, 1988) was an American jazz saxophonist, arranger and composer. He came to prominence in the band of clarinetist Woody Herman and was known for his longtime musical partnership with fellow saxophonist ...
) plus
Allen Eager in a session that resulted in the album ''
The Brothers'' for the
Prestige label. In the early 1950s, he gigged with Bird and other beboppers of note at venues like
Birdland. Pianist
Gene DiNovi described him as "a natural player. I remember him saying once that you should come to the saxophone as a child would—pick it up and blow. He had blond, straw-colored hair. Always with a farmer's cow-lick sticking up. He was a very simple, lovely person."
He left New York in 1954 for the West Coast, settling eventually in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
where he found a congenial environment, fitting well into the
beat generation
The Beat Generation was a literary subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced American culture and politics in the post-war era. The bulk of their work was published and popularized by Silent Generat ...
culture personified by one of his acknowledged admirers,
Jack Kerouac
Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation.
Of French-Canadian anc ...
. In 1959, the heavy drinking that had early on given him his nickname took its toll, and he withdrew from the scene. He subsequently resurfaced in Europe.
Based out of
Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
,
Denmark
)
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, song_type = National and royal anthem
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, subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark
, establishe ...
, he would, with the exception of three years in New York (1967–70), continue to perform there for the rest of his life,
teaming with such fellow ex-pats as
Kenny Drew
Kenneth Sidney "Kenny" Drew (August 28, 1928 – August 4, 1993) was an American-Danish jazz pianist.
Biography
Drew was born in New York City, United States, and received piano lessons from the age of five. Feather, Leonard, & Ira Gitler ( ...
and
Sahib Shihab as well as European players
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and
Alex Riel. In August 1973, back in Copenhagen from a trip home to settle his late father's affairs (and, ironically, after years of economic uncertainty coming into a substantial inheritance), he fell down a flight of stairs in
Tivoli Gardens
Tivoli Gardens, also known simply as Tivoli, is an amusement park and pleasure garden in Copenhagen, Denmark. The park opened on 15 August 1843 and is the third-oldest operating amusement park in the world, after Dyrehavsbakken in nearby Kla ...
and suffered the injuries that caused his death.
Influence and legacy
In the liner notes for a
Storyville Records issue, critic
Alun Morgan suggests in liner notes for the CD reissue ''No More Brew'' that Moore's "total discography is small for a man of his musical stature" because of the saxophonist's unswerving adherence to his Lestorian roots. As critic
Scott Yanow
Scott Yanow (born October 4, 1954) is an American jazz reviewer, historian, and author. Allmusic Biography/ref>
Biography
Yanow was born in New York City and grew up near Los Angeles.
Since 1974, he was a regular reviewer of many jazz styles a ...
observed: "In the early '50s,
oorerecorded . . . with fellow tenors Stan Getz, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, and Alan Eager; at the time, they all sounded identical. Moore was the only one of the five who did not change his sound through the years."
Alternatively, Danish scholar Soren Schou has likened Moore's "epic melodist" playing to writing a novel and contrasted it with the concentrated "short story" approach practiced by post-Bird improvisers. Certainly Moore's expansive style of playing tested the attention span of post-bop era listeners. (In evidence of this, one is referred to his X-rated comments to an apparently less than fully engaged Stockholm audience while introducing "Manny's Tune" on "No More Brew," Storyville CD 8275, 1998.)
Moore himself told critic
Ralph J. Gleason
Ralph Joseph Gleason (March 1, 1917 – June 3, 1975) was an American music critic and columnist. He contributed for many years to the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', was a founding editor of ''Rolling Stone'' magazine, and cofounder of the Monterey ...
in 1954: "The idea of playing for me is to compose a different, not always better I'm afraid, melody on the tune and basis of the original song, rather than construct a series of chord progressions around the original chords." An idea the more pre-bop inclined Gleason clearly approved of, noting that Moore "has two absolutely golden gifts. He swings like mad and he has soul . . . he also has a priceless gift for phrasing. . . . When Brew says it, he says it simply, but it rings true."
[Ralph Gleason, Original liner notes to ''The Brew Moore Quintet'', Fantasy, 1954]
Discography
As leader
* ''The Brew Moore Quintet'' (Fantasy, 1956)
* ''Brew Moore'' (Fantasy, 1958)
* ''Brew Moore in Europe'' (Debut, 1962)
* ''Brew's Stockholm Dew'' (Sonet, 1972)
* ''No More Brew'' (Storyville, 1981)
* ''Fru'n Brew'' with
Tony Fruscella (Spotlite, 1981)
* ''If I Had You'' (SteepleChase, 1982)
* ''I Should Care'' (SteepleChase, 1982)
* ''The 1954 Unissued Atlantic Session'' with Tony Fruscella (Fresh Sound, 2011)
* ''Live in Europe 1961'' (Sonorama, 2015)
As sideman
*
Slim Gaillard, ''At Birdland'' (Hep, 1979)
*
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz (February 2, 1927 – June 6, 1991) was an American jazz saxophonist. Playing primarily the tenor saxophone, Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, with his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre o ...
, ''
The Brothers'' (Prestige, 1956)
*
Ray Nance
Ray Willis Nance (December 10, 1913 – January 28, 1976) was an American jazz trumpeter, violinist and singer. He is best remembered for his long association with Duke Ellington and his orchestra.
Early years
Nance was the leader of his o ...
, ''
Body and Soul'' (Solid State, 1970)
*
Cal Tjader
Callen Radcliffe Tjader Jr. ( ; July 16, 1925 – May 5, 1982) was an American Latin Jazz musician, known as the most successful non-Latino Latin musician. He explored other jazz idioms, even as he continued to perform music of Afro-Jazz, ...
, ''Tjader Plays Tjazz'' (Fantasy, 1956)
* Cal Tjader, ''Latin Kick'' (Fantasy, 1959)
*
George Wallington
George Wallington (October 27, 1924 – February 15, 1993) was an American jazz pianist and composer.
Early life
Wallington was born Giacinto Figlia (some sources give "Giorgio") in Sicily, and then moved to the United States (New York) with ...
, ''The George Wallington Trio'' (Savoy, 1956)
*
Chuck Wayne, ''
The Jazz Guitarist'' (Savoy, 1956)
Notes
References
* "Brew Moore Dies; Jazz Musician, 49," ''The New York Times'', August 20, 1973.
"Brew Moore," Jazz ProfessionalAttarian, Hrayr, "Brew Moore," ''All About Jazz''
* Gardner, Mark, Brew Moore Quartet - I Should Care (Notes) SteepleChase CD 36019 1993 reissue of 1965 broadcast recording
* Gleason, Ralph, The Brew Moore Quintet (Notes), Fantasy, 1956 (CD reissue 1993).
* Morgan, Alun, Brew Moore – No More Brew (Notes), Storyville, 1998 (Originally recorded for Danske Radio in 1971.)
Neely, Mike, "The Brew Moore Quintet" (Review)* Schou, Søren, "Brew Moore – En Melodisk Epiker," Tidsskrift: Jazz Special, No. 62, 2002.
* Wiedemann, Erik, Brew Moore - Svinget 14 (Notes), Black Lion CD760164, 1991 reissue of 1961 recording.
*
Wilson, John S., "Brew Moore, Saxophonist, Back After Two Decades." ''The New York Times'', September 11, 1968.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moore, Brew
1924 births
1973 deaths
People from Indianola, Mississippi
American jazz saxophonists
American male saxophonists
20th-century American saxophonists
Jazz musicians from Mississippi
20th-century American male musicians
American male jazz musicians