(From Tom King, New Zealand, May 2008)
Your website so evokes the great personality of Sandy. I was lucky enough to hear him in 1971 when visiting Britain. It was a Thursday evening in June at the 100 Club, and he was appearing with his fellow proud Scot, George Chisholm. That was a memorable week for me, with Sandy on Thursday, Chris Barber on Friday, a re-formed (but not reformed Temperence Seven on Saturday, and a Riverboat Shuffle on Sunday with Alex Welsh's band and Ken Colyer's. I was recently able to 'score' a second-hand LP copy of Sandy's ' Hair', which our local jazz broadcaster of old (Keith Edmonston, of Shetlandic origin) called the most disgusting cover he had ever seen. My mother is from Glasgow, emigrated with her parenets to Kansas, and must be the only Kiwi alive who heard Bix at a Whiteman concert in Salina, Kansas in 1928.
(From John Cox, April 2008)
John Cox sent us details of a page on the Jazz professional site which gives the text of a discussion in 1963 between Sandy, Harry South and Jimmy Deuchar where they were presented with unidentified recordings and asked to discuss them. Click here to visit the discussion.
(From Jeff Matthews, February 2008)
I am interested to know if the Sandy Brown Band used head arrangements when in the recording studio?From Dizzy Jackson, March 2008
When we did that fabulous fortnight in London in 1953, the band produced an EP with four tunes on it. There was no special arranging and we just played each number as we normally did, trying to keep to the time allowed. Sandy of course always went over the suggested time. The studio was really primitive and I remember having to play behind a screen which separated bass and drums. For some reason, I also had to play standing on a chair with the bass similarly supported - makes it a real problem to swing without falling off the chair, never mind the beat. Of course swing was never a problem playing with Al and Sandy as that pair swung so strongly they could have pulled anyone along with them.
From Ron Rubin, March 2008
About Sandy's arrangements: I'm pretty sure they were all head arrangements, definitely for piano, bass and drums. Tony Milliner might remember whether there were any 'dots' for the front line.
From Tony Milliner, March 2008
My recollection is that some numbers had arrangements and others didn't. There was always a 'talk it through time' with people's features being discussed. I remember an argument at the Dancing Slipper where people kept asking for tunes but we couldn't play them because we didn't have the music - Sandy didn't like people seeing us read music. In the end we did use band parts and put them on the floor to read. 'Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting' and 'Worksong' were certainly written down. I remember Sandy called me an 'enigma' for wanting parts written down!.
Information compiled by Bob Weir for 'Jazz Journal International' included an item in August 2007 where someone vaguely recalled hearing about a privately made LP of Sandy's band at Wood Green Jazz Club in 1955. In JJI for December 2007, Bob summarised further debate about what this LP might have been. John Latham and the Sandy Brown Newsletter suggested it might have been a Ristic label recording with Johnny Picard's Angels from the Fishmonger's Arms; a privately made LP by John R.T. Davies subsequently issued by Lake records as' Cy Laurie Blows Hot', or a Deroy Private 10" LP by the Cambridge University Jazz Band with Sandy and Al Fairweather as guests (not reissued). In the February 2008 edition of JJI, Bob says that he has heard from Tony Gent in Devon that the Deroy LP was produced from his own recording at his 21st birthday party in Cambridge's University Cellars. Tony is suggesting that an enterprising record company could produce an interesting CD of the Cambridge jazz scene.
From Graham Collier, Spain (October 2007)
Graham recalls the occasion when he was in hospital at a time when there were limited visiting hours. Sandy Brown came to visit him. He said," I told them I'd come down from Scotland ... to visit you. But I didn't say when I'd come down from Scotland!"
From Howard Gabe, Brazil (October 2007)
I used to play clarinet (a little!) and I remember once looking at Sandy Brown's and the part of the reed that entered his mouth was all chewed up and closely resembled the cutting edge of a rough saw blade. I'm sure that helped to produce his unique sound, and it was unique. I just read your 'What's New' page and saw the piece on Tony Milliner. What a nice person he was (still is - Ed), I remember talking briefly with him at the Dancing Slipper, in West Bridgeford, one night. I was at Nottingham University in the early sixties and used to be a regular at the Saturday night jazz sessions there. It was a legendary jazz club back then, and just like the Six Bells on the King's Road, where I saw the Sandy Brown/Al Fairweather band on several occasions - a fairly regular Saturday night spot for that band too, if my memory is serving me well. I also was a fan of Roy Williams, who followed Tony Milliner, and I also enjoyed listening to him during the many years that he was with Alex Welsh; another great band.
From David Keen, Canada (January 2008)
I am a 62 year old ex-pat Brit from London living on Vancouver Island off the west coast of Canada, I have been here since 1970. I met Sandy at the Six Bells in Chelsea in the late sixties. I was a clarinet player myself at the time and a huge fan. I asked him about his clarinet and the set up he used. He generously offered to let me try his horn, which I did, and he was happy to talk at length about what kind of set up he used.
At that time he was using a Leblanc clarinet and a Brillhart Ebolin 6* mouthpiece with, I believe, a medium to medium-soft 2½ Vandoren reed. Apparently the top joint of his Boosey and Hawkes Symphony 1010 clarinet (not 8-10 as stated elsewhere on the Forum) had cracked and was being repaired. The mouthpiece he used with the 1010 was a wooden one made out of rosewood and he had no idea what make it was or what the tip opening was. He told me he acquired the Leblanc to use in the interim while the 1010 was in being repaired, that the Brillhart mouthpiece was 'in the drawer at home', and he just thought he'd give it a try. He liked the set up so much he never did go back to the Boosey or the rosewood mouthpiece.
He told me he felt the Leblanc had way more clarity in the upper register and that's why he liked it so much.
There's no mystery with regards to burning off the end of a reed over a coin and certainly not something that was exclusive to Sandy, many reed players used the coin trick in lieu of commercially available reed trimmers. After many hours of use reeds tend to soften up, burning off the tip or trimming off the tip with a reed trimmer tends to restore some of the stiffness. With regard to the Boosey and Hawkes Symphony 8-10, I don't believe there ever was such an animal. Booseys made two pro-model clarinets in those days. An Imperial 926 designed for dance band players. The 926 designation was in reference to the bore diameter in thousandths of an inch. Its bore being .926" in diameter at its largest point. The other model was the Symphony 1010 designed for symphonic/legit players, its bore being 1.010" thousandths of an inch in diameter at its largest point. Bigger bore instruments generally speaking are designed to give a darker sound and to blend better in a section.
I have a huge collection of Sandy's albums; a whole bunch of 45 rpm EPs and probably half a dozen or more of his LPs. I have recently discovered 'Webster Records. Jazz by Mail' (www.jazzbymail.com), a North American based company out of St Louis, Missouri who seem to be reissuing a huge amount of British Jazz on the Fellside and Lake labels including some of Sandy's stuff that I had not seen before.
From Jeff Matthews (May 2007)
(Jeff wrote to us in April asking for information about Sandy's clarinet.)
Thank you very much for the information. I have spoken to John (Latham) and he told me that there was a (Boosey and Hawkes) 8-10 clarinet which was an 'affordable' professional model. Wouldn't it be interestiung to know where that clarinet is now?
(Does anyone know what happened to Sandy's clarinets? Please contact us with any information you might have).
From Jeff Matthews (April 2007)
From the first time I heard Sandy Brown play I was knocked out by his sound. I am returning to playing myself now and listening again to Sandy. Is there any information about Sandy's clarinet and mouthpiece set-up? Does anybody publish the music for Go Ghana and African Queen? Are the head arrangements still in existence? I started a band about 2 years ago and I want to add some of these gems from the Sandy Brown portfolio of tunes. Thank you for any information you can give me about Sandy and his playing. What a sad loss to British Jazz - As was Archie Semple. (If anyone can help, please contact us).
[Recollections in the Newsletter during 1999/2000 indicate that Sandy started with a simple Albert System clarinet and changed to a Boehm around 1950. He then moved on to a Boosey and Hawkes 8-10 and by 1971 was also playing a Leblanc. There is debate about the mouthpiece. Although the B&H seemed to have a B&H mouthpiece, apparently clarinet players can 'personalise' their mouthpieces by having the original altered by widening the 'lay' to get more penetration. Sandy did use hard reeds to get extra volume and shrillness and it was remembered that he would burn off the top edge beteen two coins to make them harder still. It should be noted that Sandy had a plate of false teeth that he would take out when he played and this would also have an effect on his tone. Someone else also recalled that he played with his fingers straight. If anyone can help regarding the publishers, please let us know. IM]
From Norman Simpson (April 2007)
I keep up a record on most Bristish mainstream/traditional bands, but I have always had difficulty with the line up of Sandy's band between November 1954 and April 1955. Gordon Blundy, Charles Sonnentein, Don Smith and Arthur Fyatt were with him for a short time but I don't know the sequence. Does anyone have any information?
[In the autumn of 1953, Al Fairweather stayed on in London and worked with Cy Laurie whilst the rest of Sandy's band returned to Scotland. Sandy finished his college course and qualification in the autumn of 1954 and then returned to London where he and Al got back together. According to Sandy's discography, he was recording again in late 1954 (unissued tracks) with Al Fairweather, Alan Thomas, Mo Umansky, Don Smith and Arthur Fryatt and then again in April 1955 for which Norman has the information. If anyone can help further, please let us know. IM]
Norrie Thomson and Dizzy Jackson replied:
On his return to Edinburgh to continue his studies, Sandy formed a band using basically the same personnel that he had used prior to going to London. He also founded 'The Stud Club' which was located in the Crown Bar, Lothian Street, Edinburgh (subsequently there was a well known folk music club at the same location). Sandy's band played regularly at the venue as well as getting outside gigs from time to time. According to Dizzy, the band personnel were Alex Welsh (trumpet) -[this was apparently Alex's big break], Bob Craig (trombone), Sandy Brown (clarinet), Al Imrie (banjo), Dizzy Jackson (string bass) and Farrie Forsyth (drums).
Apparently there was no regular pianist with the band but at different times Drew Landels and Pat Paterson played.
The band also went through to Glasgow and made about an hour's worth of music. Tapes of these recordings surfaced a couple of years ago and Dizzy thinks that Paul Adams of Lake Records has them and intends to release them along with the S&Ms.
It is not difficult to justify the claim that Sandy Brown was ' the most original voice to emerge from the post-war British jazz movement' (John Latham in Sandy Brown Discography, Eurojazz Discos No5, April 1997, p.3) for the crucial limitation of British jazz in this period is that it was imitative.
Musicians and bands strove to copy the American artists and were judged by their audiences by how close they came to achieving this. This was true of all the big names of the British post-war jazz movement. Just try thinking of any of them, and you will find it to be true. Except Sandy.
It is true he began by copying Johnny Dodds, but by 1955 he had found his own individual voice. Listen to African Queen (LACD 133). No American clarinetist ever sounded like this, nor did any American band. To prove the point, then listen to Go Ghana, Scales, The Card, Monochrome, Those Blues, Wild Life, Blues From Black Rock, Doctor Blues, I Presume, Ognoliya and Saved By The Blues from McJazz & Friends (LACD 58). His solo on Wild Life is sublime. From his later career, listen to Splanky (Spotlite SPJ901-CD), In The Evening recorded with American Blues pianist Sammy Price in 1969 (Blues For The Bluesicians on the Jazz Colours label) and all the tracks from 1971 on Sandy Brown with the Brian Lemon Trio (HEP CD 2017), especially Eight.
Others imitated, but only Sandy was a true original.