"Jeremy Brown might be a new name to many listeners of this music. He is a Professor of Music at the University of Calgary in Alberta Canada who teaches improvisation, is the Director of the University Jazz Orchestra and the Saxophone Ensemble and is a notable and prolific scholar of music. He is a busy professional musician who plays saxophone, flute, clarinet in classical, and jazz settings. He is a virtuoso, who is very highly regarded in Canada and elsewhere.

I met him when I was the Killam Visiting Scholar at the University in the Spring 2017 semester. He was my contact in the music department. Jeremy’s interest in improvising was sincere. Although he was quite humble about his knowledge of Free Music, or free improvisation, he was in fact quite capable of both understanding it and performing it. Before I went to Calgary Jeremy sent me a video of his performance of Other’s, a solo saxophone piece that he commissioned by the great John Butcher. I confess to being surprised when he told me about it, and blown away when I heard him play. The piece contains state-of-the-art saxophone vocabulary. Jeremy’s performance confirmed that he is a totally advanced, unique, and important contemporary musician who is able to play the most challenging music with ease.

We got together to play duos every week I was in Calgary. These sessions included serious discussion about improvisation and music of the highest level. Over the course of my time there I taught a class and conducted weekly workshops that included students in the department and community musicians. I also worked with the University Jazz Orchestra, led by Jeremy. He participated in everything, as a member of the groups or the class, with an open mind and great playing.

A few weeks into my stay Jeremy arranged for us to perform at a conference on classical saxophone in Edmonton. We did a short improvised piece. His decision to do that for a group who hold him in the highest regard as a respected colleague took a lot of courage, and he was very excited to do it. After our set he said to me “I’ve played every classical piece there is for thirty years and I can do it without thinking, but this was a challenge and now that I’m done I just want to go back on the stage and play some more”." -  Joe Morris