Rich Brown is a Toronto-based electric bassist, composer, educator, producer, and online radio broadcaster. He has been an active member of Toronto’s culturally diverse music scene since 1992.

Brown was born and raised in the city of Toronto. He picked up the guitar at 8, reluctantly practicing per his mother’s request, before becoming enthralled with music after seeing Van Halen’s “Unchained” on MTV at the age of 13. Upon entering high school, he noticed that there was a plentiful number of guitar players, and not enough bass players, so he began teaching himself the instrument. He began playing along to Police records, and the radio, when one day he switched to a jazz program that was playing the famed bassist Jaco Pastorious, which turned him onto the genre.

He began playing in a Rush cover band in high school, before beginning to work with bands of different cultural backgrounds in the early 90s, ranging from Brazilian and West African music, to Egyptian, Turkish, and South Asian music. In 1999 Brown joined Andy Milne’s band, Dapp Theory, contributing to two of the band’s albums. He says it was with this group that he began to find his voice as a bass player.

Brown formed his own group in 2004, rinsethealgorithm, with the goal of modernizing jazz as dance music. The name comes from the DJ term “rinse,” meaning to accomplish a task at a very high level. The group released their debut album, Locutions in 2008, followed by a nomination for “Electric Group of the Year” at the National Jazz Awards for three years in a row (‘07, ‘08, ‘09), and a Galaxie Rising Star prize in 2010. Brown released a solo record, Between Heaviness & Here in 2014. His music is influenced by jazz-rock and jazz-funk of the past, as well as hip-hop, R&B, funk, and the style known as broken beat.

The catalyst for Brown’s third record, Abeng (2016) was an invitation from pianist Vijay Iyer to join the faculty at the Banff Centre for the Arts in 2012, by whom he was incredibly inspired. The album features collaborations by some of Toronto’s finest jazz musicians, including Luis Deniz, Kevin Turcotte, Kelly Jefferson, Larnell Lewis, Rosendo Chendy León, Chris Donnelly, and Robi Botos. It was nominated for a Juno for Jazz Album of the Year (solo) in 2016.

Brown is featured on over 70 recordings with other artists, covering a wide range of musical genres. He has played, toured, and recorded with distinguished artists such as James Blood Ulmer, Vernon Reid, Steve Coleman, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Angélique Kidjo, David Clayton Thomas (Blood, Sweat, & Tears), Jane Siberry, Kim Mitchell, Vijay Iyer, and Kurt Elling, to name a few. He has dabbled in the film industry, appearing in the film Glitter starring Mariah Carey, the made for TV movie The Natalie Cole Story, and the television series Soul Food.

Currently, he works as an educator at both Humber and University of Toronto’s for their jazz programs, hosts a weekly online radio show “New Origins” on JazzCast.ca, and runs a YouTube channel called “The Brown’stone” dedicated to bass/music education.

Awards

• Galaxie Rising Star Prize (2010)