With a soft voice laced with traces of his native South Carolina, eZra Brown speaks earnestly about the positives he's found in Mississippi since coming here in 1992. "I'm excited about the way Mississippi is actually growing. Young fire is a good thing. … There's gold everywhere."
The fire that Brown, 30, currently wants to keep going involves getting citizens to register and vote. Along with the A. Philip Randolph Institute, Brown's organization I am Seven is sponsoring a Get Out the Vote event on Oct. 1 that starts at 7 p.m. at his studio at 147 Millsaps Ave. "It's the Seven way to collectively get together to get out the vote, Phase One being voter registration, Phase Two getting voters to the polls. … Everybody needs to help because it's wonderful to be together." Brown added, "You can't say nothing unless you vote."
It was Jackson State's jazz program that brought Brown here. His schoolteacher mother, who also sings and plays piano, still lives in South Carolina, as does his sister. "My mom is like my heart. I love her. She was always telling me you're gonna be a king. ... We weren't allowed to say 'can't' in our house," Brown said.
Brown brought that confidence born of a mother's love with him when he came to the state he's grown to love "for the learning I've done, for what I can be here. I never would have had the chance to be all this anywhere else," he explained.
By "all this," he means jazz saxophonist, keyboardist, entrepreneur, music arranger, music director and activist. He credits much of his growth to mentors— one sort of gold he found in Mississippi— like Dr. London Branch, Harrison Callaway and Paul Adams. Adams used to watch him through the practice room door, racing to learn something new. "He changed my life. I always wanted to be fast and perfect in learning everything. He gave me the confidence to slow down."
Jazz musician Jimmy Heath, among others, calls Brown "soapbox preacher" because he plays like he's got a lot to get off his chest, Brown told me.
Now, though, he's on another sort of soapbox. About voting, Brown said, "I'm about revolution," but within the system. He knows Mississippians will join him and other young fire that he respects, like hip-hop artists David Banner and Kamikaze, to make those changes. "I believe the soul of Mississippi is yet to be seen," he said.
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