Best Jazz Artist
Donald Brown
A colorful keyboard stylist and one of the pre-eminent composers in contemporary jazz, University of Tennessee music professor Donald Brown is more heralded in places like Paris and New York City than he is in his own adopted hometown. That was particularly evident in 2003, a year that saw Brown feted in New York by jazz luminaries as part of the Columbia University composers tribute series, and then honored as the featured performer at a huge outdoor concert in Senegal on the African continent.A former sideman with the legendary drummer/bandleader Art Blakey, Brown has achieved his greatness at a price; he has long struggled with tendinitis and other debilitating orthopedic ailments, ills that make his pianistic accomplishment a thing of some wonder, if not outright incredulity. Despite those physical troubles, he continues to forge ahead, teaching, playing, and touring intermittently in the U.S. and abroad. For proof of his excellence, check out his lovely 2002 trio recording Autumn in New York, his 13th release under his own name, or catch one of his weekly performances at the Bearden-area 4620 club.