A night for Tammi Brown: ‘I’m living and thriving’

It was indeed Tammi’s night.

Two hundred people spent almost as much time on their feet as seated Sunday night as the packed Kuumbwa Jazz Center witnessed a tribute by a cream of the crop of local and Bay Area musicians. 

“Tonight for Tammi,” organized by local musician Dylan Rose and friends, ran for three hours, and concluded with Santa Cruz jazz/gospel singer Tammi Brown both thanking the crowd and speaking to her struggle with stage 4 cancer. The singer learned she had the disease earlier this fall, and at one point was told she might have “just days to live.”

“Put away all of your isms and schisms or whatever else you got going on. It’s not important,” she told the crowd as the night was drawing to a close. “What’s important is you and I. Nobody’s going to go live on Mars anytime soon, folks. We’re all going to be down here together. And you’ve got to remember, yeah, we’re down here, but we’re still floating in freaking midair. Did you realize that?” (Brown recounted her fall ordeal and what she has learned from it, reprinted at the end of this article.) 

“They told me, ‘You’re not going to live through this. … And I’m living and thriving,” she said. “I’m nearly cancer-free now.” In fact, Brown joined a number of her friends on stage, her voice and spirit full and strong.

The benefit concert followed closely word that Brown will also be named Santa Cruz County’s artist of the year for 2024, a prestigious honor that recognizes artists with national and/or international reputations who happen to reside in Santa Cruz County.

Bassist Polo James emceed the evening, which featured a leadoff performance by guitarist Stanley Jordan, who got on and off stage first so he could get to San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium and perform later the night with Phil Lesh and Friends.

Among the performers at the unexpected almost-winter festival of music: James Durbin, Attune, Lauren Monroe Band with Rick Allen, John Wineglass, Makili Wa, Tanya Fitzgerald & Broken People, Dan Robbins and Dylan Rose and James.

Durbin sang one of two Beatles songs Brown requested for the evening, and insisted on the introduction, “the incomparable Miss Tammi Brown.”

On an evening when the Santa Cruz Symphony postponed its performance in deference to the benefit concert, the assembled musicians, led by the full-voiced Brown, walked the crowd out with “Let The Sunshine In.”

The Santa Cruz community has rushed to Brown’s aid, to help her defray the costs of her treatment with a GoFundMe campaign.

Tammi Brown recounted her experience with near-death to the Kuumbwa audience:

I went to see my doctor and my doctor sent me to a pulmonologist because of the breathing. And when she gave me the prognosis, everyone said, “That can’t be.” And I thought I had gotten it from the Circle Song School with Bobby McFerrin at Grace Cathedral. We had a big thing. Hundreds of people attended and COVID outbreak. So I thought it was that. But it was not that.

But just to make a long story short, they gave me days to live. No, that was in September. And just to give you an example of the power of prayer, or hope and a belief like Lauren [Monroe] was saying, a belief in the divine, call it what you want. I call it God. Some of you may call it my rabbit’s foot or Buddha or Muhammad or whomever, Jesus. Whomever you call it. There is power in that because had I given up on that … I mean, I watched a friend die, a fellow musician of mine who had the same condition and she passed. But I asked God, I said, “If you take me through this, can I keep my voice? Please don’t take my voice away.”

And I believe God heard my prayer, and I was still able to sing. I was on oxygen for a month. I could not breathe without it. Matter of fact, they took it out, and I felt like I was dying. However, they told me I would be on oxygen for six months to the rest of my life, at least. 

I got off oxygen in 30 days.

June 24th, I was here performing. I did a tribute to Ella Fitzgerald. I was performing with one lung. The right lung had collapsed, and I didn’t know that. Are you understanding where we’re going here? I did a performance with John Wineglass. Now, this is John Wineglass, a very good friend of mine. He’s won so many Emmy awards, I can’t even count them. He is a composer of some of the most magnificent music for orchestras.

Very humble. I did a performance with him two days before I had to go into. … Well, I ended up in the hospital and I thought I was having an asthma attack, but what it was, was I only had one lung and the left lung was starting to diminish as well.

However, when they put me in the hospital … Lauren and Rick, oh God bless them. And again, let me think. Dylan Rose, Lauren Monroe, Rick Allen …I know I’m going to miss some people and they’re going to just crucify me after because I still have chemo brain a little bit. So I’m still trying to focus on things. However, all of you that made this happen, and all of you that have been supporting, all of you are responsible for helping me to live. And so having touched the doorknob of death, my life is a lot different. There’s a lot of things that are not as important as love or passing someone and showing love or smiling at someone and being kind to one another. You know what I mean?

Put away all of your isms and schisms or whatever else you got going on. It’s not important. What’s important is you and I. Nobody’s going to go live on Mars anytime soon, folks. We’re all going to be down here together. And you’ve got to remember, yeah, we’re down here, but we’re still floating in freaking midair. Did you realize that? … They told me, “You’re not going to live through this. We’re going to try to help you live.” And I’m living and thriving. I’m nearly cancer-free now.

John and I were able to go and do a tour in France, and we sang at a place called Abbey Abondance. It was in the French Alps. It’s a 12th-century abbey.  And it was amazing. All I could think about was the awesomeness of my creator and how good he is to me.

Now, back to Rick and Warren getting on the plane. God bless him. I needed 2 liters of oxygen to get on that plane. Had I gone on that plane, my doctor says at 2,500 meters, which is roughly about 8,000 feet, mathematicians, do your calculations, but 8,000 feet, I would’ve died. My lungs would’ve both collapsed. That was the first case. Second time is when my oxygen levels depleted so low that I was just moments from my organs shutting me down.

And my friend who is blind, mind you, came to my house and said, “Hey, you don’t look so good. Let’s go to the hospital.” Of course, I was upset, but I went to the hospital with her and they kept me for seven days and she stayed there with me and spent the night in the hospital for seven days straight until they worked on me every single day.

And I’m now here. Now this song that I’m going to attempt to do is called “Oceans,” and it’s about rising above the waves. … A couple of months ago, I couldn’t even talk to you because I didn’t have the breath to talk to you. Since then, my right lung has reinflated. My oximeter levels are 99 to a 100%.

So please, please remember that whatever the story, if the story is something bad, it doesn’t have to be that way. It doesn’t have to end like that. That goes for any circumstance. It applies to all circumstance. And please remember, we are down here together. It takes us together as a village to make this work. If you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of stuff going on in this world that’s way crazy scary. And you have to send out that love because that love does work. You sent it to me and look, I’m here.

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