Patti Bown (July 26, 1931, Seattle, Washington – March 21, 2008

Patti Bown (July 26, 1931, Seattle, Washington – March 21, 2008, Media, Pennsylvania) was an American jazz pianist.

 

Bown began playing piano at age two; her sister was a classical pianist who married Gerald Valentine. She studied piano while attending university in Seattle, and played in local orchestras toward the end of the 1940s. From 1956 she worked as a soloist in New York City, playing early on in sessions with Billy Eckstine and Jimmy Rushing. She released an album under her own name, Patti Bown Plays Big Piano, in 1958 for Columbia Records. The next year, she recorded in a trio with Ed Shaughnessy, and later in the year played in the orchestra of Quincy Jones on a tour of Europe. While there she also played with Bill Coleman in Paris. In the 1960s she worked extensively in the studios, recording with Gene Ammons, Oliver Nelson, Cal Massey, Duke Ellington, Roland Kirk, George Russell, and Harry Sweets Edison. She also recorded with soul musicians such as Aretha Franklin and James Brown, and acted as musical director for the bands accompanying Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan.

In the 1970s Bown worked as a pianist in orchestras on Broadway and composed for film and television. She lived in Greenwich Village for the last 37 years of her life, and played regularly at the nightclub Village Gate.

Patti Bown (Media, Pennsylvania) was an American jazz pianist.

Bown began playing piano at age two; her sister was a classical pianist who married Gerald Valentine. She studied piano while attending university in Seattle, and played in local orchestras toward the end of the 1940s. From 1956 she worked as a soloist in New York City, playing early on in sessions with Billy Eckstine and Jimmy Rushing. She released an album under her own name, Patti Bown Plays Big Piano, in 1958 for Columbia Records. The next year, she recorded in a trio with Ed Shaughnessy, and later in the year played in the orchestra of Quincy Jones on a tour of Europe. While there she also played with Bill Coleman in Paris. In the 1960s she worked extensively in the studios, recording with Gene Ammons, Oliver Nelson, Cal Massey, Duke Ellington, Roland Kirk, George Russell, and Harry Sweets Edison. She also recorded with soul musicians such as Aretha Franklin and James Brown, and acted as musical director for the bandsaccompanying Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan.

In the 1970s, Bown worked as a pianist in orchestras on Broadway and composed for film and television. She lived in Greenwich Village for the last 37 years of her life, and played regularly at the nightclub Village Gate.

by Eugene Chadbourne
Patti Bown was one of a pair of sisters who diligently
studied classical piano as young girls in Seattle. The word
"young" is meant in its fully glory; as legend has it, she
played piano in the governor's mansion at the age of two.
Her sister launched a career as a classical keyboardist and
wound up marrying composer Gerald Valentine, while Patti
Bown decided to play jazz in order to help create the sort
of music that gets played endlessly in tiny Japanese bars,
among other places. That comment is made in particular
reference to the pile of Gene Ammons sides this pianist
appears on, large enough to arouse the curiosity of a
customs agent if packed in luggage and certainly strain a
few muscles in the process.

Occupying a similarly hefty place in her discography are her
collaborations with arranger, composer, and bandleader
Quincy Jones. This relationship actually extends back to
Bown's childhood; the two were childhood friends and have
reported playing games such as "house" together. Little did
they know back then that Jones would be taking his own big
band on tour in Europe in 1959 with Bown featured as the
pianist. The occasion for this tour was the revue Free and
Easy, featuring music written by Harold Arlen.

A frequent contest winner as a child, Bown studied at the
University of Washington and began working with local
Seattle bands in the late '40s, well before graduating. Bown
relocated to New York City in the mid-'50s, often tinkling
around in the background of cocktail lounges as well as
getting into the more upfront rhythm of a jazz gig. She has
accompanied a variety of vocalists, including Billy
Eckstine, Dinah Washington, and Leon Redbone. Her
compositions include the tune "G'won Train." She was chosen
to perform at the Kennedy Center in 1997.

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 andkidney
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.