Alexander Brown

A clarinetist and bandleader, Brown stood among the self-taught European musicians whose musical preferences shifted across decades from purist traditionalism toward broader mainstream currents and eventually jazz-rock experimentation. During the mid-1940s he directed a traditional jazz and swing ensemble based in Scotland. After relocating to London in 1954, he sat in from time to time alongside local players such as Humphrey Littleton, Ken Colyer and Chris Barber. Between 1949 and 1973 he issued numerous sessions under his own name while occasionally fronting dates in the 1950s and early 1960s that carried the billing of his trumpeter Al Fairweather. Additional collaborations from the late 1960s into the early 1970s paired him with Sammy Price, Brian Lemon and Phil Seamon, after which he traveled to America to record with Earle Warren in 1974. A collection of his essays and autobiographical writings appeared in London in 1979, four years following his death.