Even when he plays in a straight-ahead band, virtuosic twentysomething trumpeter Maurice Brown can't turn his back on the electric funk and hip-hop that have shaped his generation of jazz players. And when he sails outside the mainstream--as he does with this new sextet--those influences make the trip intoxicating. Soul'd U Out gives full vent to his passion for contemporary pop--neosoul, funk, rock, psychedelia, and especially hip-hop, which makes itself felt not just in the beats but in the sampled electronics and Brown's melodic trumpet hooks (which other people ought to be sampling themselves). Of course, his love for jazz is evident too: the tune "Funk Hop" (streaming on his MySpace page) quotes from Miles Davis's famous 1966 recording Miles Smiles amid its tossed salad of waka-waka guitar, James Brown rhythms, and radio static. And the song relies on the sweetness of tone and playful phrasing that have made Brown one to watch since his high school years in Chicago. Though his music now bristles with the almost manic energy of New York, his post-Katrina home base, it retains its youthful soul and liberating grit. --Neil Tesser, Chicago Reader

One of the brightest stars on the contemporary jazz scene, Maurice "Mobetta" Brown grew up in the south side of Chicago. Showing a remarkable affinity for the trumpet, Brown performed with Ramsey Lewis at the Symphony Center in Chicago while still a student at Hillcrest High School. Following graduation, he received a full scholarship to attend Northern Illinois University, and later continued his studies at Southern University in Baton Rouge, LA, where he worked with famed clarinetist Alvin Batiste. Brown relocated to New Orleans shortly thereafter, preforming with numerous jazz veterans and urban contemporaries such as Clark Terry, Johnny Griffin, Ellis Marsalis, and Lonnie Plaxico, Bilal, DJ Logic, John Legend, and Kanye West. He has recorded with Curtis Fuller, Fred Anderson, Roy Hargrove, Talib Kweli, Ernest Dawkins, and Aretha Franklin. In 2001 he won first place in the National Miles Davis Trumpet Competition and in 2004 he released his first album as a bandleader, heading his Maurice Brown Quintet for Hip to Bop, which showed an amazing affinity for Bop-inflected jazz, along with a willingness to expand the genre's lexicon through innovative techniques like playing trumpet solos through a wah-wah pedal. Brown lived in New Orleans until being displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and has since relocated to New York City. He continues to head his quintet and a hip-hop/funk combo called Soul'd U Out.