1. John Alexander Brymer OBE was an English clarinettist and saxophonist.
23 Facts About Jack Brymer
1. 2.
Jack Brymer was largely self-taught as a player and he performed as an amateur before being invited by Sir Thomas Beecham to join the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1947.
3.
Jack Brymer remained with the orchestra until 1963, two years after Beecham's death.
4.
Jack Brymer played in the BBC Symphony and London Symphony Orchestras.
5.
Jack Brymer was associated with several chamber music ensembles, and maintained a lifelong pleasure in playing jazz.
6.
Jack Brymer held professorships during most of the period from 1950 to 1993, first at the Royal Academy of Music, then at the Royal Military School of Music and finally at the Guildhall School of Music.
7.
Jack Brymer was a regular broadcaster, as a player and presenter and made recordings of solo works and with orchestras and smaller ensembles.
8.
Jack Brymer published two volumes of memoirs and a book about the clarinet.
9.
Jack Brymer was born in South Shields, County Durham, in the North East of England, the son of John Alexander Jack Brymer, a builder, and his wife, Mary, nee Dixon.
10.
Jack Brymer senior played the clarinet, and his son started to attempt to play the instrument at the age of four.
11.
Jack Brymer had no formal instruction as a clarinettist, but discovered music and worked out an instrumental technique for himself.
12.
Jack Brymer later insisted that all these genres had been of great value to him professionally.
13.
Jack Brymer was educated at Westoe Secondary School, South Shields, excelling at rugby football.
14.
Jack Brymer joined the teaching staff of Heath Clark School, Croydon, and in his spare time played in amateur musical ensembles.
15.
Jack Brymer had returned to his teaching post after being demobilised from the RAF, and was incredulous at receiving a telephone call from Beecham inviting him to audition.
16.
Jack Brymer's first reaction was to think it was a practical joke, with one of his musical friends impersonating Beecham's familiar lordly drawl.
17.
Jack Brymer recalled "an old man in a raincoat leaning over my shoulder advising me of how to play the delicate clarinet solo which comes immediately after Don Quixote has died".
18.
Jack Brymer was the orchestra's co-principal clarinettist from 1963 to 1971.
19.
Jack Brymer began to play more often in chamber music.
20.
Jack Brymer accepted an invitation to join the London Symphony Orchestra as co-principal with Gervase de Peyer.
21.
Jack Brymer was director of the London Wind Soloists, and a member of the Tuckwell Wind Quartet and the Robles Ensemble.
22.
Jack Brymer performed as a soloist with many of the leading British and American jazz players of the post-war decades.
23.
Jack Brymer's ashes were interred a short distance away in the churchyard of St Peter's, Limpsfield, close to the grave of Beecham.