Buescher Saxophone Artists

BROWN BROTHERS

SAXOPHONE SEXTETTE

TOM BROWN -soprano sax, alto sax

EARL (last name unknown)tenor sax

FRED BROWN-alto sax

Unknown-tenor sax

ALEC BROWN-baritone sax

VERN BROWN-bass saxophone

In a Toronto memorabilia shop one day, I discovered an old portfolio of photographs that once belonged to the pit orchestra clarinetist from the Wintergarden Theatre in the ' 20s. I believe his name was Tim, judging by some of the inscriptions (one to "..the greatest clarionet player...")

The above photo intrigued me so, that I felt it necessary to go hunting for acoustic-process 78rpm records in an old barn owned by the late, great, JIM HADFIELD .
Pretty soon I had a cache of Emerson & Victor recordings by the Brothers Brown, every one of the Emersons with the Tom Brown stamp of approval on the label; "OK Tom Brown for Six Brown Brothers". Being Canadian, I feel particularly proud that the brothers hailed from Ontario, living, at various times, in the regions of Lindsay and Ottawa.

One of the things in the photo that had me mesmerized was the big bass saxophone being held and played by Brown Brother Vernon (above.) I started to wonder about what it must have been like growing up in the Brown household, with six brothers all playing musical instruments! How was it decided who would play what size of saxophone once the idea for the act was formulated? I wondered about the kinds of vaudeville dives the group must have played when they were first breaking in the act, and I imagined them trying to practise their horns in various boarding houses.

I meditated on their careers, and in particular, Vern's horn, so much, that I forced myself to go out and purchase my own bass saxophone. The young man that sold me my silver-plated Conn told me that the Evette & Schaeffer bass sax used on the Six Brown Brothers' commercial recordings is residing in the Shrine To Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota!! The Shrine also houses a large collection of personal correspondence between Tom Brown and his friend Dr. Hewitt A. Waggener, a number of Six BB photos, a goodly portion of their commercial recordings, magnetic oxide tapes, and metal acetate discs (which may or may not be of the Six BBs.)

For those of you that have visited this page before, you will notice a change in the line-up information, as well as in certain portions of the text. This is all due to the exhaustive and extensive research of Bruce Vermazen. After years of only being able to obtain mere crumbs of information about the Six Brown Brothers' history, I came upon Mr. Vermazen's most excellent essay. Click here to discover virtually all there is to know about this wonderful saxophone sextet!

At some point in their careers, The Brothers Brown took part in a production entitled "TIP-TOP"! Click here to view the sheet music cover....Irving Berlin (no less) wrote the featured song...

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After the sextet disbanded, Tom Brown begat a number of pursuits, one of which was a Band Instrument Co., which published a digest called; "Tom Brown's Topics". Click here to view some of the digest's ads! I'm going to tell my sax repairman to lower his prices! Click here to view the digest's back cover.

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