Pete Brown (jazz musician) with Coleman Hawkins and Roy Eldridge. His last appearance was in 1960 with Dizzy Gillespie. Brown was the teacher of Cecil Payne. Pete Brown (jazz musician) James Ostend "Pete" Brown (November 9, 1906, Baltimore, Maryland - September 20, 1963, New York City, New York) was an American jazz alto saxophonist and bandleader. Brown learned to play piano, trumpet, and saxophone while young. He played in New York with Bernie Robinson's orchestra in 1928, and played from 1928 to 1934 with Charlie Skeets. In 1937 he worked in the band of John Kirby; for several years in the 1930s he worked
Dizzy Gillespie who worked a Baltimore–Philadelphia–New York City circuit which included the Apollo Theater. Willis was not immediately friendly but Gillespie was attracted anyway. The two finally married on May 9, 1940. They remained married until his death in 1993. Gillespie stayed with Teddy Hill's band for a year, then left and free-lanced with other bands. In 1939, he joined Cab Calloway's orchestra, with which he recorded one of his earliest compositions, "Pickin' the Cabbage", in 1940. After a notorious altercation between the two men, Calloway fired Gillespie in late 1941. The incident is recounted by Gillespie and Calloway's band members Milt