Guillermo E. Brown

Guillermo E. Brown, a drummer, emerged as a result of his association with David S. Ware and other free jazz musicians from New York. As a solo artist and in his work with artists such as Spring Heel Jack and Matthew Shipp, he has attempted to combine free and traditional jazz playing with electronic music, hip-hop, and ethnic musics.

Brown was born into a musical family in New Haven, CT, in 1976. He grew up around jazz, hip-hop, and rock, and he became involved with ambient and techno after hearing DJ Spooky. Brown replaced Susie Ibarra in the David S. Ware Quartet before the recording of Ware's Surrendered in 2000. He also played on 2001's Corridors & Parallels, the first Ware album to feature Matthew Shipp on synthesizer. In 2001, Brown also played on Rob Reddy's Seeing By the Light of My Own Candle and Roy Campbell's It's Krunch Time, as well as on Masses, an album that featured many New York free jazz musicians improvising over backing tracks created by the electronic duo Spring Heel Jack. In 2002, Brown appeared on DJ Spooky's Optometry; Shipp's jazz/hip-hop album Nu Bop; and he played with William Parker's big band, the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra. Brown also released his solo debut, Soul at the Hands of the Machine, an album even more eclectic than those on which he had previously appeared.