Alan Brown is a musician with a long and revered history in the New Zealand jazz scene as a pianist & Hammond organist. He was the bandleader of the successful jazz-funk ensemble, Blue Train, in the 1990s and the organ-based Alan Brown Trio in the 2000s. He has also performed and collaborated with New Zealand artists Caitlin Smith and Nathan Haines.
More recently Alan has explored ambient approaches to composition. He released two albums of solo piano improvisations, Silent Observer (2015) and Composure (2018), an electronica work, Wind and Wire (2020), and three albums with electro-acoustic duo, Alargo (with Kingsley Spargo), the most recent of which, Obscura, was part of the inaugural Seventh House Music series on Rattle Records.
Alan has also been involved in music education for many years, having taught at MAINZ (Music and Audio Institute of NZ), Massey and Auckland University’s jazz departments, and currently as a Music Production lecturer at SAE (School of Audio Engineering). He also runs a part-time business repairing vintage keyboards and synths.
His solo debut for Rattle, Murmur, is the Vol 5 of the Seventh House Music series, features ten languorous spaces, a contemplative album rich in open ambiences and colours, a restrained and mature work from one of New Zealand’s finest musical artists.
