Larry Brown

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I am currently an IT Professional and a Professional Musician - Days, I work for Jewish Vocational Service where I am the entire IT Department.  Evenings and weekends, I play many instruments including Sax (Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bari), Clarinets (Bb, Eb, Bass), Flute and Piccolo  doing whatever gigs I can get.  I haven't been able to play too much since moving from Florida to Cincinnati in late 2003, there aren't many decent paying gigs in the Cincinnati area. I REALLY miss playing all the shows and backing up acts as they come through the South.  

In the IT world, I have both an AS in Computer Science (emphasis on programming) and a BS in Information Technology.  I've taught Computer Science classes both at the college level (Intro to Computers, COBOL I and II and Systems Analysis & Design at St. Petersburg College for 3 years) and at the Corporate level (Developed and taught the almost the entire microcomputer curriculum plus System Analysis & Design and Software Project Management at GTE Data Services for 5 years), worked as a both a systems and applications programmer in C, COBOL, BASIC, Pascal, dBase III, Clipper and IBM/370 Assembler, done hardware and software support on both mainframes and microcomputers, worked with 3Com Voice over IP and Avaya Definity phone switches, been a network administrator (Novell, NT and 2000/2003), worked as an electronics technician, managed a corporate helpdesk, been a Helpdesk Administrator, etc.  

As far as music goes, I've been fortunate in my career to have had a great upbringing and have played with, backed up or shared the stage with a diverse group of people and bands.  Here's a pretty complete list  (click here),  although I'm sure I've forgotten someone along the way.

Let's take it from the top - I started on accordion at 5 and then trumpet when I was 6. I switched to clarinet at 7 and had my first paying gig a few weeks before I turned 9, playing clarinet in a Dixieland band.  I added in sax the summer before entering high school at Maine East HS in Park Ridge, IL, where band was more like a full-time gig.  I even played sousaphone for half of my senior year, which taught me to listen to bass lines when playing jazz.  Then I was a Music Performance major at Northern Illinois University and Triton College from 1969 - 1971. 

In 1971, I came REALLY close to winning the lottery.  Too bad it was the draft lottery -  I had a number 3 and they took up to number 270 that year, so I enlisted in the Navy to avoid getting drafted into the Army and going to Viet Nam. I ended up spending 8 years traveling around the country with Navy Bands out of San Diego, CA and Great Lakes, IL.  It sure beat going to 'Nam.  Besides, Green is NOT my best color, especially when running through a rice paddy carrying a weapon instead of a sax.  In 8 years, the only "sea time" I did was 4 hours on a Coast Guard cutter on Lake Michigan.  I did, however, log several million miles in vans, busses and planes.  It was a great playing experience but enough was enough.   Along the way, I got married (in July '72) and had 2 kids (more later). 

I got out of the Navy in October, '79 after 8 years of "hit-and-runs" - Besides being very tiring, it was a major case of "too many politics, not enough music".  When I got out, we moved to Florida where my mother lived and I got a job as an Electronics Technician while going to school, majoring in Computer Science.  I put the horns in the closet for a while to "get it all" out of my system and concentrated on school and work but once it's in your blood, you can't give up music.  One day, in a round-about way, I was asked to sit in and sight-read a musical.  One thing lead to another and I was back to playing steadily, sometimes as much as 28 - 30 nights a  month in addition to the day job. Here's "Military Intelligence" for you - I was 28 and in the Navy Band at Great Lakes, and they actually told me I was "too old to play rock"... after I got out, I spent much of the next 25 years playing a lot of rock, much of it with world-class groups (see the list of bands above).

I got divorced in July '96 and moved from Tampa to Lakeland, where my day job was.  Laurie and I got married in 2000. We got divorced in 2006 but decided that we should have worked on our problems, and got back together in 2008 and still live together.  I took a job transfer to Cincinnati in October, 2003 - Back to the snow  and away from the heat and humidity! That job was eliminated within 9 months but I stayed around and now live in West Chester, OH, with a good day job and more and more gigs coming along.

I  have 2 great kids from my first marriage: Nicki, my daughter, is 36 and lives near Tampa.  She has a 16 year-old daughter (Amanda) that is in high school and a 7 year old daughter (Rhiannon) that is in 2nd grade.  Chris, my son, is 35 and an Independent Duty Corpsman in the Navy, currently serving with the Marines in Afghanistan until October, 2011. Then it's back to Hawaii for a little while.  He and Tenina have twin daughters Taelor and Jaeden, who were born on November 5th, '07.  I don't get to see ANY of these guys as much as I'd like to, but at least there are Cell Phones, Facebook, E-Mail, Skype, Webcams, Instant Messaging and Snail Mail to keep in touch. I also have 3 step-daughters: Jennifer (27), Amy (24) and Stephanie (20). They all live here in the Cincinnati area.  Jennifer and Alex have 3 daughters (Aliza - 6, Ziva - 2 and Emilyn - born 4/25/11).