Jack Brownlow
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Jack Brownlow (March 3, 1923 - October 27, 2007) was an American jazz piano player.[1]
Brownlow was born in Spokane, Washington, and after serving in the Navy in World War II he lived in Los Angeles from 1945–46, playing with Lester Young, Boyd Raeburn and others.[2][3] He returned to Wenatchee after that to work in the family printing business. In the mid-1960s he returned to playing music full-time.[4] Jack Brownlow was the most respected jazz pianist working in Seattle from the late 1960s until his death. JazzTimes noted of him that per their contributing writer Doug Ramsey's liner notes, "Brownlow is a legend in the Pacific Northwest."[5] At a party at Ramsey's house in 1971, saxophone player Paul Desmond heard Jack play and reportedly said "If I played piano, that's how I'd want to play it."[6]
"Ray Blagoff, later a lead trumpeter in name bands and the Hollywood studios, was with Jack at the Farragut Naval Base in Idaho. “We were all in awe of his ear,” Blagoff says. “He could play anything in any key."
Scott Faulkner, who played bass with Brownlow, wrote "When Bruno and I played at the Canlis piano bar, he hated when people sang along. When Bruno wanted to ditch a singer, it wasn’t a fair fight…nobody ever even made it to the bridge. I wouldn’t have thought that a pianist could go through four completely unrelated keys within 16 bars and still make a song sound good. It was great ear training for me, although I must say I, too, ended up on the short end sometimes. I have known very few people who have mastered music completely. Jack Brownlow is one of them." [7]
Brownlow died on 27 October 2007 of kidney failure. He was 84 when he died.[8]
