Taking Excellent Care
Don Braden is a champion of the healthy, fit lifestyle
Don Braden, shown here at the 2025 Litchfield Jazz Camp Talent Search, is one of the jazz community’s best-known advocates of pursuing a healthy lifestyle. (8495Jazz photo)
Tomorrow is Patriots’ Day in Massachusetts, the annual occurrence of one of the world’s signal sporting events, the Boston Marathon.
Don Braden has never run a marathon, but he was tempted to try it at one time.
“When I hit 50 I was looking for something to do that was something to build toward,” Don told 8495Jazz, “an accomplishment I hadn’t done before that would require significant training and be an augmentation to my health and fitness journey. So I researched marathon running.”
Now, Don, primarily a tenor saxophone player, performs and teaches all over the world, but he is probably best known in this region for his long-standing tenure as the music director (since 1998) of the Litchfield Jazz Camp. What is probably less well-known about him is that when he headed off from his Louisville home to college at Harvard University, he intended to study engineering as well as playing jazz. And he thinks problems through thoroughly as a disciplined engineer might. So he researched how well a guy who had been lifting weights seriously might fare running 26.2.
“In my late 20s and early 30s I began a concerted lifting regimen, and by my late 30s I was pressing around 275 pounds,” he said. “I can still press 205 comfortably. A lot of my life’s journey has been around discovering how to optimize training for maximal results while taking care for my age. So getting back to the marathon, I realized I spent a lot of years putting on muscle, and marathons are not synchronous with that idea. A big heavy guy like me has no business running 26 miles.”
Given his stellar performance and teaching CV, and his obviously scholarly approach to living his healthiest life, Don has become known as one of the jazz community’s leading voices on living healthy; one of his hallmark essays, “Take Excellent Care: Health & Fitness for Musicians,” was published in Downbeat.
Don does not consider himself an expert, though: “I wouldn’t call myself an expert but I’m certainly an advocate, that’s for sure,” he said.
What’s particularly compelling about jazz musicians becoming advocates for healthy living is the dark mystique that surrounded so many of the fathers of modern jazz. Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker, and many others of that era, all fell prey to heroin addiction (as did Billie Holiday and Anita O’Day, for that matter).
The reasons for the genre’s top names becoming addicts are many and various, but among them we might consider the mistaken notion by Parker’s acolytes that, if Bird could play like he could while high, maybe they could. Another was, as Sonny Rollins intimated to James Kaplan in Three Shades of Blue, that drug use was one avenue for the pioneers of bebop to show they had rejected the insidious demands of the wider, white-dominated culture, to be minstrel-y entertainers and were part of a hip, talented, and disaffiliated subculture. That they could play what they damn well pleased, music that was complex – and you could either get it or not – when they wanted to. The reaction of the establishment in demonizing drug use - New York City authorities taking away performers’ cabaret cards after a bust, for instance - did nothing but signal to the artists they were playing against a stacked deck, anyway.
“Obviously, every era is different, and the social energies flow the way they flow,” Don said in pondering those dynamics. “And certainly back in those days you had the next levels of stress. You had Jim Crow, you had the civil rights movement, you had the FBI targeting jazz musicians for various things. There were very significant social issues and the economic issues that go with that. Some of those still exist; they’re pernicious and persistent.
“All that put together created the next level of stress that may be a little better now. I couldn’t tell you with any authority, but my opinion, being in it now, I can tell you that for lack of a better word, there’s been lesson learning. We looked at the results of all those heroin addicts. And jazz musicians tend to be quite intelligent in general, and said ‘That is not really a smart choice.’ Most musicians now who are working have come through some sort of educational system which didn’t exist in the 1940s and 1950s, and that tutelage has helped. Basically, educator types tend not to be drug types – your peers and mentors are not doing it. So why should you do it?”
Nor did Don shy away from mentioning that some of the pernicious remnants of racial attitudes that were once widely expressed more openly have had their effect on his efforts to stay in top mental and physical shape.
“Also, being Black and being kind of defensive in my thought process that just comes with being a Black person, being away from my conscious defense mode never struck me as wise. And part of working out was an element of the self-defense thing. Being a big, strong guy minimizes challenges.”
Functional strength also helps minimize challenges in much more prosaic ways. Such as manipulating an instrument for hours at a time.
“The physicality of the saxophone is very serious,” he said. “Until my 30s when I started lifting, I had started having trouble with numbness in one of my arms and pain in my neck. Lifting weights cleared all that up once I was into it for about a year and really rolling. If you love music, being in shape is one of the best ways to nurture that love. Because it’ll make you feel better and you’ll be better able to manage your instrument.”
Don’s learning process in adopting his lifestyle was not a result of any particular booming epiphany, but rather the cumulative result of a tweaked back muscle here, an offhand remark by a bandleader there, recollecting advice from his Dad at some point. And he doesn’t beat his students up about it, giving them the benefit of being savvy enough to make good decisions themselves.
“I tell my students now, your energy in your teens and early 20s is pretty boundless. But between 25 and 30, it’s going to change up and all the musicians above that age nod their heads. They’ll find their way. I just drop it on them and say keep it in your memory bank, there may be a time when you’re ready to explore and some of them jump right in.”
At 62, he says the lessons he accumulated 30-plus years ago are still bearing fruit. Though marathons are out, he has trained for and ridden long charity bicycle rides, and is pondering a possible triathlon. And he has plenty of energy left at day’s end to hit the stage with his sax.
“I can do a full day of travel, a full workout and still have a ton of energy for the gig and keep going. And it’s all because of the health choices.”
Mens sana in corpore sano – Don Braden shares how he keeps his physical and mental health in top shape. Don, the music director at Litchfield Jazz Camp, is one of the jazz community’s foremost advocates for pursuing healthy living.
Jazz Miscellany
A couple of hard-to-categorize items to bring to your attention:
The Hartford Jazz Society is sponsoring a bus excursion to the Sunday lineup at the Newport Jazz festival on August 2. Price is $180, including transportation, festival ticket and driver tip.
Yesterday was Record Store Day and non-profit label Resonance Records has released classic performances by jazz giants who lived in western Massachusetts: At The Jazz Showcase: Live in Chicago is a two-LP set featuring the iconic pianist Ahmad Jamal with bassist John Heard and drummer Frank Gant, recorded in 1976. Jamal lived in Ashley Falls. Alight Upon The Lake: Live at the Jazz Showcase is a three-LP set featuring saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef, who lived in Shutesbury, with pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Bob Cunningham and drummer Albert “Tootie” Heath captured live in June of 1975.
Out and About with 8495Jazz
These listings are a curated sampling of shows in the region. As an independent resource for jazz news, 8495Jazz does not receive any consideration, free tickets, or affiliate fees for these listings. Please confirm events are still happening directly with the venue.
8495Jazz Wild Card Gigs of the Week
Not one, not two, not even three – but FOUR gigs worthy of Wild Card status this week! Ya can’t go wrong!
VFW Post 399, Westport, CT
JazzFC Benefit Anniversary Bash, Thursday, April 23, 6 pm. $150 - $350 includes dinner, dessert, silent auction and non-stop music until 10 pm.
The folks at JazzFC pay it forward on the regular with jazz outreach shows, an annual scholarship for a music student going off to college, and new programs like their career advice seminar coming up on April 30. This is a jazz fan’s opportunity to be a mensch!
Berkshire Athenaeum, Pittsfield Public Library, Pittsfield, MA
Jazz Prodigy Concert with drummer Xander Rosenblum, Wednesday, April 22, 7 pm. Free.
Part of the larger Pittsfield CityJazz Festival, this year’s featured young phenom is 14-year-old Xander Rosenblum of New York City. But Xander is no stranger to jazz fans in the know up here in the woods of the 8495 – he placed on the podium in last year’s Litchfield Jazz Camp talent search. Truly a “I saw him when…” talent. He’ll be playing with veteran musicians from the Berks.
Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
Wesleyan Jazz Orchestra Weekend, Friday, April 24 and Saturday, April 25, in the university’s Crowell Concert Hall at 7 pm both nights. GA free Friday (RSVP recommended), $12 Saturday.
The university’s jazz orchestra and jazz ensemble bring you the tunes Friday night and on Saturday it’s the faculty’s turn.
Cafe 939, Boston, MA
Takuya Kuroda (trumpet, combo), Saturday, April 25, 7 pm. GA $32.50 including service fee.
Tak doesn’t tour much around here and when he does it’s a no-brainer. He oughtta be a household name, and he is in our household. In short, he knows the place of the trumpet in modern music.
8495Jazz Spur of the Moment Gig TODAY
Pump House Music Works, S. Kingstown, RI
Tom White Project (piano, combo), 6 pm. GA $23.18 including service fee.
Other Upcoming Shows
Firehouse 12, New Haven, CT
David Berkman Quartet (piano, combo), Friday, April 23, 3, 8:30 and 10 pm. GA $20 for the 8:30 show, $15 for 10 pm show.
Regattabar, Cambridge, MA
Dee Dee Bridgewater and Bill Charlap (vocals, piano). Friday, April 24, 7:30 and 9:30 pm. GA $47.61 - $59.25 including service fees.
The Side Door, Old Lyme, CT
Rick Germanson trio w/Nat Reeves and Willie Jones III (piano, combo), Friday, April 24, 8 pm. GA $54.45, students $27.98 including service fee.
New England Conservatory, Boston, MA
Contemporary Musical Arts Ensemble Festival, Tuesday, April 21, 6:30 pm. Free.
Cafe Nine, New Haven, CT
East Rock Brass Band (New Orleans brass), Wednesday, April 22, 8 pm. GA $10.
Alchemy, Providence, RI
John Allmark Jazz Orchestra, Monday, April 20, 7 pm. GA $20.77 including service fee.
Jams
Cafe Nine, New Haven CT
New Haven Jazz Underground jam, usually 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month: free admission
Saturday jazz jam most Saturdays, 4 pm. Free.
Blackeyed Sally’s, Hartford, CT
Jazz Wednesdays, featured set 7 pm, jam session afterward.
Carmine’s, East Hartford, CT
Paisley’s All Star Memorial Jam, various Tuesdays, click link for dates, 7:30 pm. House band set followed by jam. Free.
Mahoney’s, Poughkeepsie, NY
Poughkeepsie Jazz Project, every Tuesday, 7 pm. Free.
Park City Music Hall, Bridgeport, CT
Scott Cushman and Friends followed by jam, first Wednesday of the month.
The Parlour, Providence, RI
First Sunday Jam (first Sunday of the month) with Ben Shaw Quartet followed by jam, music starts at 6. Jammers $5, audience $10.
Groton Hill Music Center, Groton, MA
Jams every second Tuesday of the month through June, 7 pm. $10 at the door, no advance sales.
Jazz Societies and Organizations (great info on events, festivals, and more)
Jazz Society of Fairfield County
Jazz Fridays at Three Sheets New Haven 1st/3rd Fridays from 6-9pm
Jazz Thursdays at The Cannon New Haven every other Thurs from 7-9pm.
8495Jazz takes its name from the two Interstate highways that cross our region, I-84 and I-95. Within short driving distances from either, you can find incredible entertainment, from local jams to world-famous festivals in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. 8495Jazz: From Newburgh to Newport!
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