Lawrence Brown was born in Lawrence, Kansas, and he acquired a wonderful background in all kinds of music--classical, radio, television, show music, gospel, spiritual, pop, and so-called jazz. He had been playing in Les Hite's band with Louis Armstrong at Sebastian's Cotton Club in Los Angeles before he joined us in 1932, and he had quite a reputation as a kind of "strolling violin," going from table to table playing very soft, beautiful melody.

As a soloist, his taste is impeccable, but his greatest role is that of an accompanist. The old-timers used to say, "Soloists are made, but accompanists are born." Lawrence Brown is the accompanist par excellence.