Oscar Brown Jr. Passes Obituaries / Jazz News Date: May 30, 2005 - 12:17 PM CHICAGO (AP) -- Oscar Brown Jr., a songwriter who composed lyrics for Miles Davis and shared billings with other jazz greats, died Sunday after a brief illness. He was 78. Brown was hospitalized in mid-April after emergency surgery to stop the spread of an infection in his lower spine. His niece, Lauren Hudson, said her uncle had been released from the hospital but was readmitted about two weeks ago. He died at Saint Joseph Hospital from complications of the illness. Brown was known for his compositions ''The Snake,'' ''Signifyin' Monkey'' and his lyrics for Miles Davis' ''All Blues.'' Early in his career, Brown shared bills with jazz greats such as Dizzy Gillespie and John Coltrane. Brown, who was active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, also ran and lost twice for political office -- first for the Illinois legislature and later for a seat in the U.S. Congress Oscar Brown Jr. become a legendary recording artist - as both a singer and a songwriter. At age15, Oscar made his professional debut in the national radio series, Secret City. And by 21, Oscar had become the first to broadcast new about "America's largest minority" during his daily Negro Newsfront radio program. During this period, Oscar attempted two unsuccessful bids to hold political office - first for the Illinois State Legislature and then for Congress. It was during this time that Oscar also began seriously composing songs, which he had previously only done as a hobby. Efforts by his father to steer his son into a business career provided to be unsuccessful. Oscar Brown Sr. was a prosperous South Side attorney and real estate broker. At the 1958, Chicago opening of A Raisin in the Sun, Oscar Brown Jr. met Robert Nemiroff, a professional manager of a New York music-publishing firm. Nemiroff brought Oscar to the attention of Columbia Records. Soon afterwards, Oscar signed a recording contract and his career as a singer was launched. While recording his first album, Sin and Soul, Oscar also signed with Nemiroff to produce Kicks & Company. This ambitious musical was crafted during the period when Oscar was supposed to be trying to sell real estate. Upon the 1960 release of Sin and Soul, Oscar Brown Jr. began a new life. Producer Al Ham left Columbia Records to become Oscar's first manager. Together, they secured an engagement at the Village Vanguard in New York City and Oscar was an overnight sensation - rarely had an artist burst on the entertainment scene to such acclaim. By then, the aspiring young playwright was presenting Kicks and Company. All of these efforts culminated in an unprecedented two-hour appearance on NBC at the invitation of Today Show host Dave Garroway. Although Kicks and Company never made it to Broadway, Oscar Brown Jr. was no longer an unknown. He was now listed as a playwright in America's publication of "Who's...Who." Oscar began sharing the bill with such greats as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, and Cannonball Adderly. These appearances earned him great critical acclaim from coast to coast. His one-man show, Oscar Brown Jr. Entertains, resulted in his being hailed: "A musical genius…", “…the high priest of hip…" and "…all the great ones rolled in to one.” __________________________________ South Side's 'High Priest of Hip' dies BY MARK J. KONKOL (Chicago) Back when Bronzeville was a boomtown, Oscar Brown Jr. spent his boyhood soaking up a street-level rhythm that pumped from every corner. He found inspiration in the hep call of newspaper hawkers and the "watermelon man" who stalked those South Side streets. "It was embedded in you. As I grew up I was socially conscious of wanting to reflect my culture," Mr. Brown said in an April interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. And before there was such a thing, Mr. Brown was a rapper who spit street poems to the pulse of Shakespeare's iambic pentameter. "The 'High Priest of Hip.' The 'Grandpap of Rap." They called him that because he was doing something like rapping way back," Mr. Brown's daughter Maggie Brown says. "He was so cool," his wife Jean Pace Brown said. And like nobody else she's ever met, Mrs. Brown says her husband "put words together so beautifully." That was his gift. He never abandoned it. Mr. Brown died Sunday after suffering from a brief illness. He was 78 years old. He wrote a dozen musicals including "Buck White" starring boxing great Muhammad Ali on Broadway, countless poems and more than 1,000 songs, the best of them -- "The Snake," "Signifying Monkey," and Miles Davis' " All Blues" -- cementing his place as a jazz legend. The son of a South Side attorney and real estate broker, Mr. Brown was active in the civil rights movement with tell-it-like-it-is bluntness that was later found in his songs. He twice ran for public office, failed bids for state Senate and Congress. It was during that time of defeat Mr. Brown turned his songwriting hobby into a life's work. Success on stage stamped his ticket to a nightclub view of the country he often criticized. He lived in Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C., and rubbed elbows with jazz royalty and Hollywood stars. It was at a party for Redd Foxx in 1962 where he met his second wife, Jean Pace, a dancer at an L.A. night club. "He asked me to dance and I did. He started blowing in my ear and I yelled, 'Don't breathe in my ear,' " she remembers. "[Embarrassed,] he asked me to say it a little louder. He was so funny. We laughed every day." "He could say, 'I love you' so many ways and never say the word love," she said. "And that's what he wanted, to love everybody and not hate a soul." But more than that, Mr. Brown's work contained a message for black folks. "He wanted to get black people to think and read about themselves and find out who they are, why we don't have money. Why we are here with nothing," Mrs. Brown said. Even though his career was amid a major resurgence in his 70s -- he opened "Jazz at Lincoln Center" in New York in October and celebrated the March opening of "Music is My Life, Politics My Mistress," a documentary about his life -- Mr. Brown wasn't a rich man. He lived in a rented apartment at 43rd and Michigan. After playing his last gig in April, Mr. Brown was diagnosed with a painful bone infection that left him paralyzed during his last days. Mrs. Brown said her husband faced death with great calm. "We talked about life and death. He said . . . wherever it is he was going that he'll see me there later," she said. "He said, 'This isn't goodbye. It's so long.' "I said, 'That's cool.' " In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Brown is survived by his son Napoleon Brown; his daughters, Donna Brown Kane of Atlanta, Iantha Casen of Maryland and Africa Pace Brown; 16 grandchildren and four great grandchildren. Services were pending Sunday and will be posted on the Internet at www.oscarbrownjr.com. This article comes from eJazzNews.com : The Number One Jazz News Resource On The Net http://www.ejazznews.com/ The URL for this story is: http://www.ejazznews.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=4502