Relaxing after his first jazz band class of the semester, junior guitarist Geoff Brown sips his tea as he casually slouches at a table in Hotung, guitar case propped against the round table. While he and his various musical projects have played the venue before, this time he's here to discuss his music and the wide, varied, globe-spanning trip that began and ended in Medford - with stops in Hollywood, Las Vegas and the Outback.
The 22-year-old junior music major will be increasing his profile locally with several scheduled performances in Brown & Brew and Hotung this spring in three separate projects. An eclectic musician, Brown plays with the Tufts group Funk Attack Squad, collaborates on instrumental works with Boston College graduate and cellist Karl Cronin, and performs acoustically with classmate and girlfriend Chloe Green.
Now committed to performing locally, Brown is intent on finishing his education, but it hasn't always been that way. When he began life at Tufts as a freshman in the fall of 2000, he found himself disenchanted with higher learning. After one semester, he took his college savings and put it to less academic - but just as educational - use: a backpacking expedition through New Zealand and Australia.
Soon after Brown's return stateside, he enrolled in the Musician's Institute (MI) in Hollywood, Calif., a three-decade-old certificate program which focuses on music markedly different from the kind he has recorded recently.
Brown describes his first CD, "Rainy Day," with cellist Cronin to be "heartfelt and user-friendly." However, this style of music is just one side of Brown's repertoire, most of which is derived from the diverse training he received at the MI. There, he took classes in subjects such as "Acid Jazz Guitar" that flavored his own music and exposed him to things he could never have found at Tufts.
Brown embraced a musician's unhealthy lifestyle as a student at in California with many late nights, bars and parties. "We were all rockstars," he said while laughing, "or at least we thought we were."
Despite the impression the stereotypically responsibility-free rockstar life may leave, the guitarists and teachers at the MI were serious about their craft, says Brown. He asserts that a motivated student could get a lot from the program - specifically, private studio time with up to 40 different teachers, able to be recorded for later practice.
But Hollywood wasn't a permanent fit for the mellow artist, either. Brown missed the East Coast and the "real people" he knew there. "I had a hunch that I was done with Hollywood," Brown said. "It was a very superficial place. I didn't want to be a marketed product."
This revelation sparked his return to Tufts, where he could pursue his musicianship with a more academically-based, traditional program. Since his return, he's experimented in funk and folk music in his separate collaborations.
Brown characterizes his work with Cronin as broadly appealing, combining elements of classical and folk music, with some elements of jazz. "It's very sentimental music," he said. His work with Funk Attack Squad is funk jazz with long, improvised solos. Brown calls it "groove music."
Brown has had a few prior incarnations as a guitarist. From his time as a "shred guitar" enthusiast at age 15 to his present funk, jazz, and acoustic love affairs, his personal style has changed with his music. He credits his original interest to a young guitarist some years older than him from his home area named Sean Fennell.
Another source of inspiration was the notable Longview Farm Recording Studio, which has seen such legends as Aerosmith. The Farm was in Brown's proverbial backyard - his hometown of North Brookfield, Massachusetts.
Brown's parents, both musically inclined themselves, have been supportive of his journey the entire way.
"I've always been kind of academic in that I want to study in a university setting and I like to teach," Brown remarked, though he doesn't know where his music will take him ultimately. "I always think about where else I could be."
