Oscar Brown Jr., a veteran playwright, jazz singer, and songwriter, died in Chicago on Sunday, May 29 at the age of 78 of complications from a blood infection. Brown wrote many musicals and plays that were performed in his hometown, including Opportunity, Please Knock, which he created with members of the Blackstone Rangers, a local street gang; Great Nitty Gritty, which concerns gang violence; and Kicks & Co, a revue.
In New York, Brown performed a revue of his own songs titled The Words of Oscar Brown Jr. in 1965 at the Gramercy Arts Theater. In 1969, he wrote and directed the short-lived Broadway musical Buck White, about a militant African-American leader, which starred Muhammad Ali, Ted Ross, and Donald Sutherland. More recently, actor Genovis Albright paid tribute to Brown in Serenade the World: The Music and Words of Oscar Brown Jr., which played the John Houseman Theater in the summer of 2003.
Brown’s best-known songs include “All Blues” (with music by Miles Davis), “Brown Baby,” “Signifying Monkey,” and “The Snake” (which, in recent years, has become the signature tune of jazz singer Paula West.). Brown is survived by his wife, singer/dancer Jean Pace Brown, and five children: Napoleon Brown, Maggie Brown, Donna Brown Kane, Iantha Casen, and Africa Pace Brown. His son Oscar Brown III died in an automobile accident in 1996.
