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Maurice Brown

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One of the brightest stars on the contemporary jazz scene, Maurice “Mobetta” Brown grew up in the south side of Chicago. Showing a remarkable affinity for the trumpet, Brown performed with Ramsey Lewis at the Symphony Center in Chicago while still a student at Hillcrest High School. Following graduation, he received a full scholarship to attend Northern Illinois University, and later continued his studies at Southern University in Baton Rouge, LA, where he worked with famed clarinetist Alvin Batiste. Brown relocated to New Orleans shortly thereafter, preforming with numerous jazz veterans and urban contemporaries such as Clark Terry, Johnny Griffin, Ellis Marsalis, and Lonnie Plaxico, Bilal, DJ Logic, John Legend, and Kanye West. He has recorded as a sideman with Curtis Fuller, Fred Anderson, Roy Hargrove, Michelle Carr, Ernest Dawkins, and Aretha Franklin. In 2001 he won first place in the National Miles Davis Trumpet Competition and in 2004 he released his first album as a bandleader, heading his Maurice Brown Quintet for Hip to Bop, which showed an amazing affinity for Bop-inflected jazz, along with a willingness to expand the genre's lexicon through innovative techniques like playing trumpet solos through a wah-wah pedal. Brown lived in New Orleans until being displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and has since relocated to New York City. He continues to head his quintet and a hip-hop/funk combo called Soul'd U Out.

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