South Orange's Don Braden Brings His Innovative Sound to the Luna Stage

In 2006, saxophonist-flutist Don Braden and drummer Cecil Brooks III recorded a live album at Cecil's, the now defunct West Orange jazz club owned by Brooks. The album, Workin', on the High Note label, included the Earth, Wind & Fire tune, "Can't Hide Love" and "Feel Like Makin' Love", which had been recorded by Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. 

On Sunday night, April 21, South Orange resident Braden, along with Brooks, pianist Brandon McCune and bassist Joris Teepe, can be expected to recreate the feel of that album in a concert at the Luna Stage in West Orange entitled, "R&B Goes Jazz". Shortly after Workin' was released, in June 2006, it was described by Jazz Times writer Steve Greenlee as "a smoldering amalgam of classic and modern . . . a recording of immediacy and intimacy."

When Braden was a student at Harvard in the early '80s, he split his time between studying engineering and playing jazz at clubs in the Cambridge/Boston area. Fortunately for music lovers, he made music, not engineering, his career. Today, he is recognized as a musician who glides easily through several different styles -- from the music he will be playing at Luna to straight ahead jazz to jazz interpretations of classical masterpieces.

Born in Cincinnati and raised in Louisville, Braden first discovered music by listening to his parents' record collection and the radio. He started playing tenor saxophone in his middle school band class, and, by the time he reached high school, he had been selected as first chair in the McDonald's All-American Jazz Band.

He moved to New York City in 1984 and has played with a long list of jazz giants including vocalist Betty Carter and trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Wynton Marsalis. Braden spent four years as co-music supervisor/composer for the Cosby sitcom on NBC and also co-wrote the theme song for Cosby's CBS cartoon series, Little Bill. Cosby has called him "a great musician," and The New York Times' Peter Watrous has described his playing as "brilliant".

Braden is currently coordinator of jazz studies at Montclair State University. For several years, he has been one of the headliners at Westfield's Sweet Sounds of Summer weekly jazz festival in July and August, and this past September, he helped electrify the crowd at the OSPAC jazz festival in West Orange as part of the Nat Adderley, Jr. quartet. He has assembled an all-star quartet for what should be a special evening as part of the Luna Stage's Music in the Moonlight series. The performance begins at 7:30 p.m.