Clifford Benjamin Brown (October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956 Wilmington, DE) was an American jazz trumpeter, pianist and composer. He died at the age of 25 in a car crash,leaving behind four years’ worth of recordings. His compositions “Sandu”, “Joy Spring”, and “Daahoud” have become jazz standards. Brown won the DownBeat magazine Critics’ Poll for New Star of the Year in 1954; he was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame in 1972.

One of the most notable developments during Brown’s period in New York was the formation of Art Blakey‘s Quintet, which would become the Jazz Messengers. Blakey formed the band with Brown, Lou Donaldson, Horace Silver, and Curley Russell, and recorded the quintet’s first album live at the Birdlandjazz club. During one of the rehearsal sessions, fellow trumpeter Miles Davis listened and joked about Clifford Brown’s technical ability to play the trumpet. The live recording session ultimately spanned two days with multiple takes needed on only a couple of the tunes.

A week at Club Harlem in May 1952 featured alto saxophonist Charlie Parker and Brown. Brown later noted that Parker was impressed by his playing, saying privately to the young trumpeter “I don’t believe it.”

Just before the formation of the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet, journalist Nat Hentoff and Brown interviewed for a DownBeat article titled “Clifford Brown – the New Dizzy”.