1999, January 1 Sandy Brown Society Newsletter # 25
by Tony Scott

Sandy Brown always had a special regard for American clarinettist Tony Scott, now living in Italy. As he says in a piece for The Listener reprinted in his book, The McJazz Manuscripts (Faber & Faber, 1979 p. 80). "His shrill tone must be the loudest in the world. I played with him for hours into a drizzly Prague morning and came away with the exhilarating feeling that breaking all the rules had worked".

This was in 1968. So I wrote to Tony at his address, in Italy. Tony replied :

"Many thanks for your letter and of course I remember Sandy Brown !
What I remember most is the gentle being and his BIG sound on the clarinet.
He and I had the two biggest sounds in the world. He said I was the biggest and I said he was the biggest.

I'm sure he had no classical training and he was a natural born jazz clarinet player
He was from the old school and I was from the new school, but we had a very good feeling and understanding between us which never happened before in my life and never has happened again. It seems that clarinet players don't get together often; they are natural born enemies.
I will never know why.

The clarinet is a lonely instrument ten times more difficult than the saxophones; it took me years to get away from my classical training, which was good for playing Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw style clarinet.

That night in Prague I think Sandy and I broke all the rules of the classical clarinet which expresses the feeling of Mozart, not of Sandy Brown and Tony Scott.
We were the rebels of the clarinet. There are no recordings of that night, and no photos. The memory of that night is really a pure memory of musical feelings flying out of us and going into the night to fight the bad vibrations of the daytime business world. Jazz is the music that cures and soothes the savage beat. (Not beast).

Any and every time you have some sort of memorial for Sandy, say that I really miss him and his clarinet. Hope to meet you one day, stay in contact, and if you know any possibility to work in Scotland I'd like to come and play. Also for a memorial concert to Sandy Brown. I am seventy-seven years old. I'm playing a lot in Italy, clarinet, also tenor sax and piano and sing. I recorded in these last years some beautiful records with Italian musicians. I hope one day to make an old time blues for Sandy. Hope to hear from you soon, stay in contact, good to hear from you
TONY SCOTT.

Ed.: Over to the Edinburgh promoters ?