Six Brown Brothers
{{Infobox musical artist
| name = Six Brown Brothers
| image = Buescher Saxophone Ad 1922 - Six Brown Brothers.jpg
| image_size =
| landscape =
| alt =
| caption = Top portion of an ad with Tom Brown in blackface and his clown band, the Six Brown Brothers, for the 1920 Broadway musical Tip Top.
| background = group_or_band
| alias =
| origin = Lindsay, Ontario, Canada
| genre = Vaudeville
| years_active = {{start date|1913}}–{{end date|1933}}
| label =
| associated_acts =
| past_members = *William Brown
- Tom Brown
- Alec Brown
- Percy Brown
- Fred Brown
- Vern Brown
}}
The Six Brown Brothers, later known as the Five Brown Brothers, were a Canadian vaudeville era saxophone sextet consisting of six brothers.{{cite book|author=Harry Burdette Hindson|title=Aspects of the saxophone in American musical culture 1850-1980|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B3tuAAAAMAAJ|year=1992|publisher=University of Wisconsin--Madison|pages=23, 36}} They were known for their comedic musical acts as well as their many recordings.{{cite book|author=Martin Krivin|title=A century of wind instrument manufacturing in the United States, 1860-1960|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V7k5AQAAIAAJ|year=1961|publisher=State University of Iowa.|pages=122, 149}} They performed as clowns with white makeup and one in blackface. Their performances included ragtime and minstrel group acts; they were instrumental in popularizing the saxophone in North America: "During the first two decades of the 20th century, the Six Brown Brothers were arguably the musical act most responsible for introducing the saxophone into American music."{{Cite web|title=That Moaning Saxophone: The Six Brown Brothers and the Dawning of a Musical Craze (Review)|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-19-516592-0|access-date=2 August 2020|website=Publishers Weekly}}
History
File:That Moaning Saxophone Rag • Six Brown Brothers (Victrola Credenza).opus
The brothers comprising the Six Brown Brothers were, William, Tom (1881–1950), Alec, Percy, Fred, and Vern Brown. The band was led by Tom Brown.{{cite book|author=Edwin M. Bradley|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M7vwCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA497|title=The First Hollywood Sound Shorts, 1926–1931|date=27 April 2009|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-1-4766-0684-2|pages=364 and 497}} (Additional non-family members also played with the group.) The Brown Brothers lived in Lindsay, Ontario until 1893. The first instrumentation consisted of a saxophone quintet (bass, baritone, tenor, and 2 alto saxes),{{cite book|author1=Otto C. Lightner|author2=Pearl Ann Reeder|title=Hobbies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qk7hAAAAMAAJ|year=1973|publisher=Lightner Publishing Company|page=122}} and in 1913 they added a second baritone sax. A soprano sax was never used with the group except as a feature for Tom Brown. The group began working at circuses, and later worked in minstrel and vaudeville shows,[http://www.allmusic.com/album/those-moaning-saxophones-mw0000636680 " Six Brown Brothers: Those Moaning Saxophones"]. AllMusic Review by Scott Yanow and then on Broadway.[http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/six-brown-brothers-emc/ "Six Brown Brothers"]. The Canadian Encyclopedia, Bruce Vermazen, 02/07/2006 The brothers often performed dressed in clown outfits.[https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9A02E1DF1239EF32A25753C3A9609C946595D6CF "THE SCREEN; A Bootlegging Melodrama."]. The New York Times, June 30, 1924 The group toured in 1912-14 with Primrose and Dockstader's Minstrels, later toured Scotland and elsewhere in Europe, and in 1925 toured Australia. They broke up in 1933, and only Tom Brown continued as a musician but with limited success.
Between 1911 and 1920 the brothers recorded a number of well-known songs, including "Walking the Dog"{{cite book|author=Elaine Keillor|title=Music in Canada: Capturing Landscape and Diversity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P4rf9W02vv0C&pg=PT215|date=18 March 2008|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP|isbn=978-0-7735-3391-2|pages=215–}} and, in 1917, one of the earliest recordings of the hit "Darktown Strutters' Ball".{{cite book|author=Mark Miller|title=Such Melodious Racket: The Lost History of Jazz in Canada, 1914-1949|url=https://archive.org/details/suchmelodiousrac0000mill|url-access=registration|year=1997|publisher=Mercury Press|isbn=978-1-55128-046-2|pages=[https://archive.org/details/suchmelodiousrac0000mill/page/38 38]–40}}{{cite book|author=Philip Lambert|title=Alec Wilder|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n9h21q8p-QcC&pg=PA2|date=1 March 2013|publisher=University of Illinois Press|isbn=978-0-252-09484-2|pages=2–}} Music critic and composer Alec Wilder writes that "When I first heard the Six Brown Brothers' (six saxophones) record of this song many years ago, I knew I was listening to something special."{{Cite book|last=Wilder|first=Alec|title=American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900-1950|publisher=Oxford UP|year=1972|pages=23}} Though Wilder's comment focuses on Shelton Brooks's composition, it reinforces that the Six Brown Brothers' recordings were of high quality.
In his celebrated essay "The Years of Wonder" (1961), E.B. White retells his adventures in 1923 aboard a steamer bound for Alaska on which the Six Brown Brothers were engaged as musical entertainment. White describes an encounter in which the group plays for Inuit in Alaska: "Later, the six Brown Brothers unlimbered their horns, and the Eskimos danced, with surprising frenzy. None of them had ever heard a sax, and the sound made them drunk."{{Cite book|last=White|first=E.B.|title=Essays of E.B. White|publisher=Harper|year=1977|pages=189}}
In 2004, a collection of the Six Brown Brothers' recordings, That Moaning Saxophone, was released in CD format. That year a book about the group's career, That Moaning Saxophone: The Six Brown Brothers and the Dawning of a Musical Craze, written by Bruce Vermazien, was published by Oxford University Press.[https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-19-516592-0 "That Moaning Saxophone: The Six Brown Brothers and the Dawning of a Musical Craze"]. Publishers Weekly
Further reading
- Bruce Vermazen: That Moaning Saxophone: The Six Brown Brothers and the Dawning of a Musical Craze. Oxford University Press, 2004. {{ISBN|978-0-19-516592-0}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
{{Commons category}}
- [https://syncopatedtimes.com/six-brown-brothers/ Six Brown Brothers] At the Red Hot Jazz Archive
- [http://www.archeophone.com/product_info.php?products_id=47 Six Brown Brothers: Those Moaning Saxophones] (Archeophone Records 6002)
- [http://media.libsyn.com/media/bigband/bigband147.mp3 Listen: The Six Brown Brothers in a 1918 recording of When Aunt Dinah's Daughter Bangs on the Piano begins Big Band Serenade podcast 147; Brother Groups Part 1]
- [http://www.jayeaston.com/galleries/sax_family/sax_history/Historical_sax_page.html Jay Easton History]
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Category:Musical groups established in 1906
Category:Musical groups from Ontario
Category:Canadian jazz ensembles
Category:Family musical groups
Category:1906 establishments in Ontario
Category:1933 disestablishments in Ontario
Category:Musical groups disestablished in 1933