On the Hot Seat: Mel Brown

Jazz drummer Mel Brown has been keeping the beat in Portland’s jazz scene for over 40 years. He started playing in clubs at the age of 17, but Brown’s talent soon led him straight to Motown, where he played with such legends as the Temptations, the Supremes and Diana Ross. Jazz aficionado Jarod Bishop talked with Brown at Salty’s, where his trio performs every Friday and Saturday night.

JB: What brought you to jazz after being a Motown drummer?
MB: Well, I was doing the jazz before I even got to Motown. I left Portland in ’65 and started traveling with organist Earl Grant...Later I was traveling with Bobby Taylor through Vancouver, Canada, and one night Martha and the Vandellas were in town. Her manager and Redd Fox came down to the club and said, “Wow, is that the drummer that played for Earl Grant?” So he called Martha at 4 o’clock in the morning and said, “You better come down to hear this drummer!” She got out of bed and came down and said, “Oh my god! I’m taking this one!” And that’s how I got to Motown.
JB: So did you go with the group or by yourself?
MB: No it was just me. After I left and got with Martha, the group finally got signed, had one or two hit records, and then they broke up. Our guitar player ended up being a comedian. And that’s actually Tommy Chong from Cheech and Chong.
JB: What got you started on the drums?
MB: I started playing in grade school, and in high school started learning from a lot of musicians in my neighborhood, down by Broadway and MLK. I was the paper boy…running newspapers early in the morning. I’d go by the club and…see people inside dancing, musicians playing. The older musicians, they’d say, “Come here little kid, let me show you how to play this.” That’s how it got started.
JB: When did you decide you wanted to be a musician?
MB: Actually it was my senior year. I started playing in clubs. Downtown on 11th and Jefferson there used to be a place called the Mural Room. My first night on the job, I started to play and they said, “Drummer, give me a roll!” Then right next to the drum, a door opens up, and here comes a lady walking out pulling her clothes off and I’m saying, “Hey guys, look at this nut over here!” They said, “Drummer, shut your mouth! And every time she pulls something off...and it hits the floor, hit the cymbal!” I was like, what? I thought I was going to play jazz, but it was a strip club!
JB: What was it like performing with Diana Ross?
MB: Oh, it was good, because Diana and I, we kind of grew up together, age-wise in Motown. She’s very demanding, she’s an Aries and I’m a Leo so we can butt heads at times because her ego was so big she’d get upset sometimes. When I joined Diane I owned a drum shop over on Stark and Grand. Diana called and said, “Hey listen, I got a couple of one nighters, can you come out?” And I said I had a business to run and she was like, “Nah, I just need you for a couple one nighters.” All right. So I go on the road and they hand me an itinerary and I’m like, “Wait a minute, I won’t be home for six months!” She said, “Yeah, that’s the only way I could get you out of Portland! So here’s some money, just buy some more clothes.” So from ’79 to ’91, you know, I was there with her. It was quite a thing.
JB: You’ve been called the “Gentleman of Jazz.” Where did that come from?
MB: I think it was the ladies. I don’t think anyone’s ever really seen me scream or holler, or be embarrassing, you know, so when they look at me I’m kind of even tempered. One of my idols is Sydney Poitier. And that’s why they say, “Oh, the gentleman of jazz. He tries to be like Sidney Poitier.” I kinda like that, you know? And plus, when I play the gig, I like to dress. You know, coming from being around the East Coast, everybody’s sharp. And that’s what I think...gives me a little longevity. Because women, if they like what they see, they’re going to come back and see you time and time again! And if the women are there, the guys are gonna be there chasin’ the women!
JB: So you’ve seen a lot of changes in Portland in the last 50 years. How has the music scene changed here?
MB: It’s changed a lot. When I came back in ’75, we didn’t really have any jazz here. It was a lot of country western. I was going to move back to New York. But my mom she told me, “Mel, don’t run from your problems, you solve the problem.” So I started changing what was happening around here. I went over to an Elk’s club over in NW, not far from the Crystal Ballroom, and started having jam sessions on Sundays. I put together a band, and I geared it for kids between 17 and 21.
JB: What was the response like?
MB: It got real big real quick. And then a place on the east side started having jam sessions, and after three or four places got going, I went to Japan with the Supremes. When I came back, things had dropped off. So I just went down to a place downtown called the Prima Donna. I talked to the club owner, I said, “Hey listen, I’m going to get off the road but I’m still kinda working with the Supremes. So I want to start a little jazz thing.” And on Thursday night all the musicians in Portland were saying, “Hey, Mel Brown just came back. We gotta go down and see him! From that point on it just started going crazy.
JB: And would you say that was sort of a jazz resurgence in Portland?
MB: Yeah...we kind of got some things going...jazz really took off, in the early 80s. At one point we had 25 clubs. Things were poppin around here! But then...we started getting…certain musicians that would move up from California, or move from another place…And they would come in and they’d have attitudes about things. And it was almost like it was, “I’m so hip. All you people that are here you came to listen to me and…adore me. And they came in with attitudes, and it started turning people off!
Then we had other people who were really, more, they had just gotten out of school. They didn’t work 6 nights a week in a club. They wanted to play some music that they had learned in college...some different music, something new. How can I force something I wrote that you’ve never heard before, down your throat? And you came to the club just to relax.
JB: Do you find that happens a lot, that young musicians trying to branch out and be unique lose a connection to the audience?
MB: Yeah, it’s very sad. You know, in order to be a very good musician, you have to find out where the music came from. I equate it with building a house. Everybody wants to start on the 2nd floor! You’ve gotta get the basement together first, to get the heat going, cause it gets cold in the winter. You know, and guys, they don’t think that way because they just weren’t raised that way, not around older musicians who really helped them out. Now it’s more like a competition. Guys say “I can play louder and faster than you can.” Instead of, “well, can we work together and make somebody out there smile or dance?”

(The above painting of Mr. Brown was created by Portland artist Diane Russell, www.dianerussell.net)