The Clef Club, After Hours featuring Tom Browne

Overview

**This event is part of the QC Summerfest happening July 29-31, 2016 at Belk Theater

After the QC Summerfest "main stage" concerts, The Stage Door Theater will transform into an impromptu "pop up" jazz club where you can enjoy drinks and some hard-hitting jazz and funk. (cash bar)

About Tom Browne:

Consider the songs in our hearts that inspire us toward uplifted continence;  melodies that ring out in a manner that is soulful ... even funky!  Now think of an artist;  an artist who George Benson describes as "joy filled in expressiveness" and "believable in any musical style," topping the jazz and adult contemporary / R & B charts with his kickin' trumpet and rich jazz melodies.  That artist ... is trumpeter Tom Browne. 

Browne began to carve a path for his musical future early on,  studying via scholarship under Murray Karpilovsky (principal trumpeter with the NBC Orchestra directed by Arturo Toscanini.)  A student at the co-joined High School of Music and Art / Performing Arts in New York  (renowned courtesy of the motion picture entitled "Fame,")  Browne became a regular on the New York jazz scene and had the fortune of learning first hand from masters like Jimmy Nottingham, Richard Williams, Woody Shaw and Freddie Hubbard.  Browne soon played his first pro level performances as sideman to jazz greats Weldon Irvine and Sonny Fortune for which he earned domestic and international recognition.  It was no surprist that Downbeat Magazine would single out his "warm trumpet" during the review of Fortunes' 1976 "Infinity Is" album.

Then in 1978, Browne led a traditional jazz quintet at the Breezin' Lounge, an uptown New York nightclub indirectly affiliated with George Benson.  Through contacts made by Jimmy Boyd ( Bensons' former and Brownes' subsequent manager) and guitar legend Earl Klugh, Browne was offered several solo recording contracts and ultimately signed with Dave Grusin and Larry Rosen on the newly formed GRP Record label.  There he recorded six solo projects including several hits.  His debut release "Browne Sugar" (1979) dominated the jazz charts for many weeks while "Love Approach" (1980) and "Magic" (1981) each earned gold album status and spawned hits like "Funkin' For Jamaica," "Thighs High" and "Secret Fantasy."