Everyone at was saddened to hear of the passing of Dean Brown, the incredible American jazz-fusion guitarist and session musician. Perhaps best known as a frequent collaborator with the virtuoso bassist and producer Marcus Miller, or maybe for his work with heavyweight jazz artists such as Michael Brecker and The Brecker Brothers, Joe Zawinul, Billy Cobham, and David Sanborn, Brown fitted in perfectly among jazz-fusion’s elite. The Sanborn connection led to Dean working with Eric Clapton.
As a sideman, Dean’s guitar featured on way over 100 albums, and he also released an impressive portfolio of recordings under his own name. Alongside his performance credits, Brown was an active educator, with a number of books, magazine articles and video lessons to his credit. He was also a regular instructor at The Musician’s Institute in Hollywood.
Dean’s playing was incredible broad, with equally impressive rhythm and lead guitar skills, as well as wonderful time feel, super articulate technique and a fantastic tone. Funk was often at the heart of his playing, with a driving, propulsive rhythmic feel to everything he played, and an incredible sense of commitment and connection to each note that he delivered. It’s clear almost immediately when hearing him play that here was a player that had studied a huge range of styles, covering rock, blues, jazz, Latin and much more besides.
All of these sounds were present in both his rhythm and lead guitar vocabulary, and you really got t.