Christopher Brown and his jazz band

Each moment of our lives presents us with opportunities and challenges for us to make decisions that will shape the next minute, hour, day, week, month, year, and decade to come. If we want positive outcomes, the challenge is learning how to string together appropriate decisions in each moment. And for that, a decision-making filter is required. Christopher Brown and his band will demonstrate how jazz musicians use decision-making filters to identify what’s worth and what’s not worth paying attention to in various moments of our lives. His presentation and the band’s performance “Beyond the Buzz: Finding the Signal in a Noisy World” will take place on Thursday, January 29, 2026 in the Sheffer Recital Hall at the John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts. There will be a reception with no-host bar at 5:30 p.m. The presentation and performance will begin at 6 p.m.

Christopher Brown is a Portland-based musician, composer, bandleader, and educator who seeks to be a voice for the advocacy of jazz music and American culture. After 20 years of military service, Brown studied jazz at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in Jazz Studies/Performance. He has taught as an artist in-residence at Wells Fargo’s “NJPAC Jazz For Teens” program (NJ), Mt. Hood Jazz Camp (OR), Mel Brown Jazz Camp (OR), Litchfield Jazz Camp (CT), Rutgers Summer Jazz Institute (NJ), Montclair Jazz Camp (NJ), and the International Summer Music Camp (Brno, Czech Republic). His musical and personal experiences have led him to an interest in synthesizing the principles of jazz with the day-to-day practicalities of life