 Until his life was cut short by a car crash, at the age of twenty-five, Clifford Brown had established himself as the most potent trumpeter in jazz since Dizzy Gillespie. Equally influenced by Fats Navarro and Gillespie, Brown possessed both a remarkable technique for high-speed playing, with every note perfectly placed and formed, and also a beautiful lyrical ballad style. He was also a gifted composer, and many of his pieces became standards, including Daahoud, and Joy Spring. His creative life was sandwiched between two traffic accidents - the first in 1950, which took him months to recover, and the second, fatal, one in June 1956. He began his professional career in Philadelphia, recording with Chris Powell, and arranger Tadd Dameron. He gained international recognition in 1953, when he toured to France with Lionel Hampton and made a set of recordings under his own name in Paris. Back in the United States, he recorded both with Art Blakey and under his own name for Blue Note. Then in 1954, he and Max Roach formed a quintet and with this group he recorded his finest work.
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