Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Milton Aubrey “Brew” Moore was born March 26, 1924 in Indianola, Mississippi where his formal musical training began at twelve, first on trombone, and then clarinet before switching to tenor saxophone. Inspired by the style of Lester Young, he even held his horn at the same unorthodox 120 degree angle. He got his first professional experience playing in a Texas territorial band the summer before entering college.

Moore left the University of Mississippi in his first year to pursue a performing career, with stints in New Orleans, Louisiana, Memphis, Tennessee and twice in New York City between 1942-47. It was in New York that he first heard the new music called bebop. Combining Young’s and Charlie Parker’s style he was able to create his own thing. Returning to New York in 1948, he became a fixture on the city’s vibrant jazz scene, cutting his first album Brew Moore and His Playboys as a leader on the Savoy Records label.

He went on to work with Machito’s orchestra, Claude Thornhill’s Big Band, the Kai Winding sextet, Stan Getz and George Wallington among others. In 1949 he joined Getz, Zoot Sims and Al Cohn, three of the four brothers from Woody Herman’s Second Herd plus Allen Eager and recorded the album The Brothers on Prestige Records. The early 50s saw Brew gigging with Bird and other beboppers of note before leaving New York in 1954 for the West Coast, settling eventually in San Francisco, California.  Fitting well into the beat generation culture, however by 1959 the heavy drinking that had early on given him his nickname took its toll, and he withdrew from the scene.

Resurfacing in Copenhagen, Denmark, he would, with the exception of three years in New York from 1967 to 1970, continue to perform there for the rest of his life. He teamed with Kenny Drew, Sahib Shihab, Alex Riel and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen among others. Following a trip home to settle his late father’s affairs and coming into a substantial inheritance, he fell down a flight of stairs in Tivoli Gardens after a characteristically bibulous night and suffered the injuries that caused his death. Tenor saxophonist Brew Moore passed away on August 19, 1973.

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