Jazzman Still Learning

by Stephen Israel -Catskill Community- The Times Herald-Record

March 10, 2001

Walk up to Hugh Brodie's small white house near Route 17. Hear the Sullivan County snow crunch beneath your feet and the traffic zoom by. Step up to the door and a new sound stops you - the sweet, succulent sound of Brodie playing his tenor saxophone. It's a sound so seductive you don't want to knock. When you finally do, Brodie greets you with a smile as warm as his voice and as bright as his electric white hair. Then you ask a simple question of the great jazzman who's played with legends like Illinois Jacquet, Sonny Stitt and George Benson. What's he playing? "I'm just trying to do it man, to create," Brodie says in that soft voice. "There just isn't enough time to practice, to get it right." That's what makes Hugh Brodie one of the best. . . .

. . . . And he may have toured the world with greats like Jacquet and recorded albums like his own "Hugh Brodie and Impulse" and Cal Massey's "Blues to Coltrane." But Hugh Brodie has never stopped learning. When he met Sullivan County crooner Mickey Barnett, he wrote country jazz tunes. Now that Brodie has a young daughter, he's writing what he calls "kiddie tunes." To see if they work, he plays at day care centers. "If the kids like it, it's cool," he says, sitting at his kitchen table, fingering the chain around his neck that holds his sax.

Hugh Brodie just released a new album, "Songs for Anu," featuring his Cosmic Ensemble of pianist Mike Kull, bassist Lew Scott, percussionist Steve Habib, drummer Joe Anello, vocalists Gayle Two-Eagles and Powhatan Swift Eagle and poet Paul McMahon. It's bursting with music that's so good it startles. The styles range from loping African-groove jazz to poetic, political chants and an alluring new sound that fuses two true styles of American music, Native American music, and jazz. Maybe that's what all his practicing is all about - searching for those new sounds. "I'm just trying to expand, man," he says. "Just trying to expand."