Composer and woodwind multi-instrumentalist Sheldon Brown has been involved in the San Francisco Bay Area creative music scene for over 20 years. In June of 2014 he premiered his extended composition "Blood of the Air" at the 32nd Annual San Francisco Jazz Festival. Based on the speech melodies of Beat-era Surrealist poet Philip Lamantia, "Blood of the Air" was made possible with the help of Chamber Music America's 2013 New Jazz Works: Commissioning and Ensemble program (funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation), and with additional support from San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music.

Since 1994 he has led Sheldon Brown Group, which performs his own compositions, and he recently formed Sheldon Brown Quintet, which performs the music of Herbie Nichols, and Distant Intervals, based on poetic speech melodies. Sheldon Brown Group has performed several times at Yoshiʼs and as part of the San Francisco Jazz Festivalʼs Summer in the City series.

Brown has performed internationally as a featured soloist with Cuban pianist Omar Sosa, and recorded on 5 of Sosaʼs albums. While with Sosa he performed at many famous venues, such as The North Sea Jazz Festival in Den Haag, New Morning in Paris, Tribute to the Love Generation in Tokyo and many others. Brown performs with many groups in the S.F. Bay Area, including: 

Electric Squeezebox Orchestra

Clarinet Thing

Darren Johnston Quintet

Goldberg, Brown, Anderson

Ian Carey Quintet + 1

Club Foot Orchestra

Laurie Antonioli

Azesu (featuring Orestes Vilato)

Mike Pattonʼs Mondo Cane 

Admiral Ted Brinkley's Large Group

Aaron Germain Quartet 

As a composer, Brown has written music for his own groups and many of the other groups he performs with. For Club Foot Orchestra he composed music for the silent films, Metropolis, Sherlock Jr., Pandoraʼs Box, and The Hands of Orlac. He also wrote music for Club Footʼs scores for the cartoon series The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat, which aired on CBS.