Sandy Brown, Jazz musician

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sandy Brown (born India 1929, died Scotland 1975) The son of Scottish/Indian parents, he was a noted Scottish Jazz clarinettist, band leader and acoustic engineer.

A self taught clarinettist, Brown was educated at the Royal High School in Edinburgh. After a disastrous spell in the Royal Ordnance during National service, he started reading for a degree in Architecture at Edinburgh College of Art. Whilst there, he also started a band with his old schoolfriend Al Fairweather in 1949.

In 1952 the band went south and played amongst other places at the newly built Royal Festival Hall in London, Brown returned to finish his studies in Edinburgh but Fairweather decided to stay in London.

Brown, upon graduating was given the position of acoustic engineer to the BBC and returned to London and started playing with various bands and individual musicians. In 1974, he travelled to New York and to record with amongst others, late members of Count Basie's band.

He returned to Britain in 1975 not knowing that he was chronically ill. Brown died of an attack brought about by malignant Hypertension aged just 46, whilst watching Scotland play England at Rugby with a glass of Whisky in his hand.

During Brown's career he played with an enormous spread of artists including: Henry "Red" Allen, Acker Bilk, Diz Disley, Humphrey Lyttelton, Ewan MacColl and Pee Wee Russell to name but a few.