Bio

Bassist, composer, performer, and teacher Miles Brown is a versatile musician who has earned bachelor and doctorate degrees from the Eastman School of Music in jazz performance studies as well as a master’s degree from the Mannes College of Music in classical bass performance.

As a jazz performer, Miles has led groups featured at the Syracuse Jazz Festival, the Rochester International Jazz Festival, the JVC Jazz Festival, and the Blue Note.  He has played with jazz masters Sam Rivers, Joe Magnarelli, Ralph Alessi, Walt Weiskopf, Harold Danko, Bill Dobbins, Joe Lovano, Sean Jones, and Regina Carter, and he has recorded on the Detroit Music Factory, Origin Records, and Native Language labels.

Miles has a passion for new music and is the bassist in the contemporary music ensemble Alarm Will Sound.  He has performed with this chamber ensemble at Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Alice Tully Hall, Amsterdam’s Muziekgebow, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, the Skirball Cultural Center, the World Financial Center, Russia’s Hermitage Theatre, and Chicago’s Millennium Park, among others. In 2019, Miles premiered a new work by William Thomas McKenney for Solo String Bass and Wind Ensemble, entitled Incino Arvum. He has performed this piece with the University of Missouri Wind Ensemble, and the University of Delaware Wind Ensemble. As a performer of new music, Miles has recorded on labels such as Nonesuch Records and Cantaloupe Records.

Numerous ensembles have performed Miles’ compositions and arrangements.  Alarm Will Sound has performed his compositions at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Cleveland Museum of Art. His music can also be heard on Native Language Records.  Miles’ 2007 CD, titled Share My Life, contains many of his compositions.  In July 2016, Miles released a CD of his own compositions entitled “Middle Game” featuring some of Metro Detroit’s best jazz musicians.  The Detroit Music Factory Label released his latest album, The Evidence of Soul and Body, in 2019.

Miles also has a passion for teaching. He served as the Jazz Program Coordinator at Oakland University from 2009-2017.  In the 2017-2018 school year he taught at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins, York College of Pennsylvania, Oakland University, the Community College of Baltimore County, and The University of Delaware. He is currently an Assistant Professor of String Bass and Jazz at UD where he teaches applied String Bass lessons, Jazz History, Jazz Harmony, String Methods, Artistic Innovations, and Contemporary Literature.