Christopher Brown grabs our “Attention” with jazz
Each moment 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, 285 E. Broadway. 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. As a young man he had the opportunity to perform with Wynton Marsalis at the Alladin Theater in Portland. After high school, Brown enlisted for four years as a percussionist with the U.S. Marine Corps. Afterward, Brown studied jazz at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts earning undergraduate and graduate degrees in Jazz Studies and Performance. In addition to his main passion as a drummer, he is proficient on the alto saxophone, which led him to perform with the great Ralph Peterson Jr. Quintet and headline as a saxophonist for the 2007 Portland Jazz Festival.
Brown’s musical and personal experiences have led him to an interest in synthesizing the principles of jazz with the day-to-day practicalities of life. Much of his focus has been developing his leadership acumen as a band leader. Given that band leading is akin to running an organization, he has been able to use his band as a metric for musical and organizational excellence for other bands, organizations, and businesses to emulate. Brown intentionally uses his band and the music they play as an instrument for challenging existing beliefs around “normalcy,” as applied to personal and organizational growth.
Brown’s presentation and performance with his jazz band is part of the OHC’s 2025–26 “Attention” speaker series. The event is free and open to the public. Please register below.